


History

by OhDear



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Hiatus, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Louis-centric, M/M, POV First Person, Real Life, Roommates, Slow Build, Travel, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:46:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 60,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5440592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhDear/pseuds/OhDear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's been two weeks since this godforsaken "break" began..."</p><p>There are several people I know who I don't really know. Fortunately, I realize that, in this aspect, I am as plain as every other person on the planet (a-ha!), because, really, that's how it has GOT to be for everyone else. I am sure, to others, I am much the same enigma. My great mates, my siblings even... I see what they want to put-on for me in the times we spend together. And sure, I know the nuances that time brings to a relationship, but what do I know of their sleepless nights or they of mine? Eh. Everyone's putting on some sort of farce, but maybe in my case I have a few extra masks. Sometimes everything moves so fast that I forget to change them on and off, and I get lost in what I'm doing or, if I even manage to do more than just float by in that sleep-deprived, schedule-oriented zombie-mode, lose track of why I should care. But I do care. Fuck me. I've never been one of the happy lads evolved enough to let things roll off my back.</p><p>Opinionated little bastard...</p><p>Nasty backswing, that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Over It

There are several people I know who I don't _really_ know. Fortunately, I realize that, in this aspect, I am as plain as every other person on the planet (a-ha!), because, really, that's how it has GOT to be for everyone else. I am sure, to others, I am much the same enigma. My great mates, my siblings even... I see what they want to put-on for me in the times we spend together. And sure, I know the nuances that time brings to a relationship, but what do I know of their sleepless nights or they of mine? Eh. Everyone's putting on some sort of farce, but maybe in my case I have a few extra masks. Sometimes everything moves so fast that I forget to change them on and off, and I get lost in what I'm doing or, if I even manage to do more than just float by in that sleep-deprived, schedule-oriented zombie-mode, lose track of why I should care. But I do care--I care what people think. _Fuck me_. I've never been one of the happy lads evolved enough to let things roll off my back. Sure, I guess I've gotten better at it as I've gotten older... to my credit or to the credit of a cynicism I've been desperately trying to strangle?

Opinionated little bastard...

Nasty backswing, _that_.

I still have trouble making sense of it all. On one hand, it's everyday life... I've known this life, this band and the people around it, this “way” for almost a _third_ of my life now... on the other hand, holy shit: why me? _Me_? Can I bow to the universe? _Why me_? What great beacon of fate got me to where I needed to be every moment of my life leading up to walking into that first audition and every moment after? Clearly this wasn't done for my benefit--there's a catch; I'm meant to be the middle-man, eh? And I'm good with that. Here, universe, I accept the position, and in this position I will keep a few funds for myself and then, as quickly as possible, get rid of all of this extra, excessive good luck. Please... I've done nothing to deserve it all.

Huge, mind-blowing concepts here that my admittedly puny, one-in-seven-billion mind, will never, ever be able to figure out. It's hard to get a grasp on, but I'm coming around to a place in my life where it's all starting to settle in, shifting around... something of a paradigm shift is abound, perhaps. The problem, here, or perhaps the blessing in disguise (not sure yet), is that now I've all of this time to... think.

_It's fucking awful._

I had no idea it'd be this bad. My initial thought was: _YES! I can relax now, have a bit of a normal life, reflect... enjoy my free time... get in some FIFA... update iOS... wash a car in my drive-way... sleep ten solid hours... fifteen... sweet! And I can do all of this free of people. I can hide away!_ What a dumb fuck, really. All of these years, sort of stressed and in variations of one mindset, and now after two weeks of legitimately, genuinely being “free” of a schedule and free of basically any and all people to be “free” from, I'm pretty fucking wrecked! This guy I thought I'd be? It turns out that I'm not that guy anymore, which is difficult to understand. I feel like I shouldn't be doing this all myself, like there should definitely be someone here to help me cope. I should be under someone's supervision so when I start getting frustrated while I'm standing in total silence on cold ceramic floors in a house I bought when I was eighteen but have barely spent three weeks in in five years, for no fucking reason, someone can say, “Love, love, just take a deep breath and concentrate on the bigger picture, eh?” BUT THE BIGGER PICTURE IS EVEN HARDER TO PROCESS!

A part has been added back to me that got shut out awhile ago. Apparently, this guy (THIS GUY) is a serious, wise, relentless... adult.

And he's over the rest of me, that _shit_.

When did this happen? My interests two weeks ago: FOOD, FIFA, FREEDOM! My interests now: FOOD, FINANCES, _FEELINGS_

God, this kitchen is too big. Why do I need two ovens and two microwaves? Why do I have a kitchen table that seats twelve, and why is that table twenty feet away? I'm too lazy to even walk that far from the kitchen island here. Why does it feel like a sterile clinical setting rather than a home now? Two weeks ago, walking back in here was, one-hundred percent, a welcoming, _wonderfully-warm_ coming-home. But now... why did I ever pick out those chairs? They're awful. And I need some rugs--and new socks.

I'm going to have to sell this place, objectively, or at least rent it out. It's way too large for one person, even if one person has family and friends come to stay for awhile, and there's too much upkeep. It's starting to seem like a money-pit..

If I can be so plain about it: I'm over this break. I'm ready to go back to zombie-mode! Since I can't, I might as well find myself somewhere where it's a little easier to swallow all of this, like maybe in a hotel somewhere... baby-steps, baby-steps! And so I go to the universal source of stability: my phone. An app for this, an app for that, and suddenly I'm out of here with a bag packed and no dishes in the sink, not even a wayward fork. And sure, was I almost tempted to go dirty up a spoon and leave it out on the counter just on principle? Of course. And I almost did it--and then I realized that apparently I've developed OCD, and I couldn't do that. That poor spoon, just lying out on that counter, all by its lonesome in such a cavernous, empty room... spoons weren't deserving of such cruelties. What would that say about me?

_Get a grip, kid._

I'm in London before I know it, staying at a boutique hotel under an alias; I always use a different one with a rare few exceptions in the case that I am looking to be found. As I am not, of course, I didn't tell anyone. I'm over that, too, and the fact that I can't establish a comfortable temperature in the little suite I've ended up in--looks as clean and updated as a hotel but less vague. It's got home written over every inch of its dark panel walls and classic desk. It's got some striped comforters, which I like, and a really good view. The place was stuffed between two much larger and wider buildings. It just sort of blended in between them, which I feel very much like doing myself.

But it is definitely a change, being out in London and walking around knowing that there's not any security “just in case,” not even my own guy. It's one thing to be out in bumble-fuck, washing my car in my drive or going for a bite to suit a famished appetite, but London, Friday night... eh, eh! But, again, Friday night, a beanie, and the most nondescript clothes I could have put on: all black. The theme: blending in, watching the others stick out, observing a little from afar... maybe seeing a movie... but definitely, definitely not being alone with myself any longer! Quota for that for the day: reached. Surpassed...

It almost tempting to make direct eye-contact with passing people to see if I'll get recognized, but nah, too much of a risk, so... wow, this pavement is fascinating.

I walk awhile, ignoring the vibration of my phone in my pocket. It's probably my mum--haven't talked to her in a couple of days--or a mate, but I'm not in the mood to talk. Hands in pockets, walking furthest away from street-lights as possible, no coat to hide or warm in, all but my one-size-too-large sweater and a light near-sweater jacket. Gives me some more time to ponder, to look up and around, to breathe in the night air and enjoy the moment. Famished, though; I could definitely use a bite, and I've heard good things about this area in general, that it's real up-and-coming, has got some good shops and eateries coming in. People here wouldn't be looking for Louis Tomlinson (sorry, who?); nothing sounds more reassuring than that.

Is Louis Tomlinson allowed to not be looking for Louis Tomlinson here, as well?

I'm inquiring for a friend...

A quick check on Yelp, and I'm not picky, so I'm going with the highly rated place. Menu looks decent. As I approach on foot, since it's only been a few blocks away, there's some commotion outside the front of the shop--people lingering around, smoking--ah, yes, hipsters. This isn't my kind of place at all, unfortunately, but I'll see how long the wait is. What? What did I just hear? With a whip and a turn and a skip ahead, I move in towards the bricks, behind a group of people about my age--who knows, actually, the night is dangerous and the lighting too dim--talking.

I can't even believe this.

There he is, Harry, with his mates: simple black coat, simple hair pulled back, simple clothes--no sparkly boots, no skin-tight trousers, just... Harry, with mates.

Strange, I just stand here--ten, fifteen feet away--and watch, leaning back against the brick with my arms crossed over my chest. This is a peculiar situation, because we've never been in it before. I haven't really gone this long without interacting with him in quite some time--years. There is a strange distance from him to me. Do I even want to alert him that I'm here? This new guy in me just wants a moment to observe objectively. Harry and I are very different, but we always had a special bond. I admittedly adore him, but not in the way its been misconstrued. He has always been, and will always be, like a younger brother to me. I will destroy worlds, if I need to, in order to get to him, to help him. We were once NOT so different, he and I, but we came into One Direction at different pivotal times in our lives. I was already more established versus him, whose formative early teenage years were spent in front of a public looking to understand his every move. He's a bit Hollywood, but he's got a good head on his shoulders, he does, and I love him dearly. I love him dearly in a different way than I do the other boys.

I'd definitely snap a neck for Harry. But only if he wasn't there to see.

This is where one of those other masks kicks in, because our relationship has been complicated. For a long time, we tried to play it off like it wasn't that way at all. But then it had to be discussed, and we did most of that discussion privately with occasional mentions to our team and other people--but then we had a bit of a falling out, and yeah, I pulled back and away, and so did he. We didn't go to each other after that. We were probably both too stubborn, or felt too awkwardly, to ever proper address it with each other. There are many facets to this relationship, which is one of the things that I have been forced to begin to unravel and dissect. I am admittedly bitter where some of this is concerned.

I can't say I don't understand why people sucked up _Larry_. But it wasn't real in the way they wanted it to be, and it did drive us apart, sometimes painfully so. We never hated each other--only ever love--but we were insecure. I was, at least. There've been times we haven't spoken in a good week on tour other than just discussing things on stage or in passing backstage... And it was allowed to be that way, because it's not like it was ever just us. That's not how it is, which fans don't really see, but... we're One Direction, but we're all separate entities. It's not just four of us. It's at least sixty other people we interact with, never only each other. Purposely separating our interactions in public mirrored itself privately. During all of that time, though I may have been annoyed that he would sometimes be more distant that I was comfortable with, I never felt differently about him. Sweet lad, real laid-back...

Things have been better over the last months. We're back on better, more natural terms.

There's still this actually--to be honest--gross tension sometimes. Sometimes he actually stifles his interactions with me when it's JUST us in a room. I am probably guilty, too.

But it's awkward, isn't it?

It's been a struggle, at times, because even I, once in a sleepless night, have questioned the foundations of what I know to be true.

I'll tweet about--God... world peace... charity... socks... and I check my replies, and eighty-percent of it is “LARRY!” So Larry is real in the sense that it doesn't want to die.

But Larry died some time ago. He was a nice guy, really--the idea of him was great, anyway. Unfortunately, it's a catch-22: I can't and don't want to tell these people to go to hell for this; we need them. And also, what would that say about me? And so I try to keep my mouth closed and let "the Larry" exist in its own world. I would need to be a scholar to delve any further...

I think I am pretty cool about it now. I have to be. I just have to shrug it off. There is nothing I can do or say. I've literally denied it. I can't win.

But I am winning so much, so one might say I shouldn't be too greedy... shouldn't bite that soft, warm hand that feeds.

I'm over in his area soon enough, not really sure of a game-plan, but having passed behind them and nearing the doors, stomach growling, I speak only loud enough for someone five feet away, not the fifteen feet Harry is, “Small world, isn't it?”

He turns, hands behind his back with a bag hanging from them, sees me, realizes, and lifts his eyebrows.

We've barely conversed since the break, but mostly because we don't need to; we saw each other nearly every day for the last seventy years. We don't really check in with a “hey.”

Two nights ago there was a text from Harry in our "lad" text message that's been going on for a little over three months now: _Missing having a cup with you all. Having one now._

I did, too, after that text, actually, but never replied--was too busy with my cuppa, naturally.

There are hard feelings between us. I am not sure there have been others on the planet who have the same resentments as we do for each other or the reasons why.

We let something so unique sort of drive us apart. We knew it was happening the entire time, yet still it happened.

He is but a happy child with his monotone, abandoning his friends with a glance at them, to say he'll be back, and he's following me into the packed entry with a hand lightly giving the back of my jacket a tug, “Could be smaller. Let's have dinner; eat with us.”

“You've already?” I glance at his bag.

“No, shopping,” he explains, realizing, and swings the back at his left side the smallest bit. “Promised a night out with the crew.”

It's not like I'm going to say no. It'll be good to catch up that small bit. I miss him and the boys, I do.

I've spoken to them so much in the last five years that I feel as though we don't need to speak for the next five, that we could pick up where we left off, just like that.

We share a light, quick hug, like we're proper mates, and my one hand never leaves its pocket. It's loose, friendly, and Harry smells like lemons.

And so I dine with lemon-Harry and his mates, but mostly I just sit quietly and stuff my face, far more interested in observing his friends than inserting myself into conversation. Everyone knows this Harry--charming, cheeky. My favorite Harry is nowhere close to this guy, though. My favorite Harry is the moody, stony-faced one who will break a morning by grumbling under his breath about the lack of suitable food even though there's a spread in front of him, because that's the Harry that doesn't have to wear a mask. That's when you know you've really come to know someone for who they are beneath things like charm, wit, or warmth. I love when he turns into monster-Harry.

Happy oaf, he is. The hugest dork I've ever known, masked very well by too-expensive clothing. This is one thing that has always fascinated me, because I've never figured it out...

"H didn't tell us you were coming," says one of Harry's pals after a long sip of whatever it is he's ordered and has had three of. He's talking to me, it'd seem.

I just give a laugh and wipe my hands together with a napkin between them, diverting my eyes from the friend to my plate, too mentally exhausted to reply about it. Don't really need to.

"Feels like it's been ages," Harry says, sitting with his back flat to the booth to the right of me, having declared himself full ten minutes ago--with three-fourths of his food left on his plate. The kid barely eats. It's embarrassing that people let him get away with it, but whatever. I'll gladly finish it off for him. I'm not even going to ask about it, either, if I wind up done with my burger and he's still not finished that chicken. I eye it, then him, and maybe he catches my drift. It'd be hard not to; we know each other too well, know these nuances and idiosyncrasies. He probably can't even hear my voice in his head right now over the reaction just that quick glance at his plate has delivered to him.

I swallow, "Yeah, you never call me anymore, mate," and smile for his friends. The comment is as hollow as this cheap-ass table.

He shrugs a "what can I tell you?" shoulder up, not invested in any of the conversation, particularly, and since the others are busy talking now, he asks me directly, as a private aside, "How'd you wind up here?" Yeah, it surprised me too. "Who are you in town with?"

If only it were that sort of a story! My head tilts from side to side as I chew the meaty texture left in my mouth, trying to figure out what to settle on, "Alone on this one. _You're most yourself where no one knows you_ , right? I've got a right mind for that lately, so, yeah, alone in a strange place." Figures I'd find him here! He can probably hear the exact comment in his head. His eyes briefly sparkle about it.

"Eh?" His left eyebrow goes up, and his elbows come up on the table, leaning in closer for conversation. He loves to stare--again, not something people want to make it out to be. He is one of those people who has a hard time understanding, sometimes, unless he is also looking at your mouth, deciphering what you're saying. He does this with everyone when he's really interested, as if to really make sure he's really getting every tiny syllable, dedicated the very existence of people sharing words with him. He's a loyalist; I'll give him that. "You're all... sorted? All right?"

"It's a quote," I explain. "Heard it months ago. Seemed to fit." I crumble up my napkin and put it on the table next to my plate and sit back, so our positions are reversed from how they'd been. My eyes go, then, and dedicate some interest in him solely, wholly, for his own good. He's needing it; he's been pretending not to look for my attention since he turned around outside. This is what I mean by there being a strain, a tension. We were best buds once. By now we'd already have plotted out our night, said our peace to his mates, and ventured out. But now I'm more of a brother, less of a best mate, less of one of the lads he gets "away from the rest of us" with. I have those people, too. It's important. "Don't much believe in fate, do I?"

Yet I brought it up?

He half-smiles, but he's not amused. A hint concerned, and his forehead wrinkles to prove it. He toys with a string bracelet on his right wrist with some restless fingertips, "Not really your neck of the woods, I'd agree," he says, of me finding myself in South Kensington and coincidentally also finding him as well. Truly, isn't that something? In all honesty, it had been a random hotel choice, and at random had I decided to leave at the time I had, in the direction I had...

"I talked to Liam this morning." Really, he's already brought up someone else? Ouch. Even the weather would have been less awkward. "He said he hasn't been up to much--said he hasn't talked to you in a few, either."

I'll give him that, too, and sigh a bit, looking up and around at the corner ceiling and the velvety curtains hanging, which sections off this booth from some others, the lighting dim and strangely violet. There's a violet hue on everything. I don't even know anymore, "I text. Been doing some thinking lately, secluded myself away for a bit, trying to make sense of things..."

Harry looks absolutely confused by this, maybe by the entire conversation, now, and sits up perfectly straight, shoulders squared off, and scratches at the corner of his mouth with a wayward ring-encircled thumb, looking away from me without expressing any other interest about it. He leans in on his right arm, a dimple carving into his cheek nearest me, towards one of his friends, attention no longer on me, just like that. He points a crooked finger across the table and then snaps it back, politely apologizing for interrupting the conversation of one of the people whose attention he particularly wanted, "Mate, I've had a lovely afternoon, but I've got a situation," he says, and he motions at me with that same thumb from before in only-the-most subtle way. Charming bastard.

"You've got a situation? Where?" I ask, and I give a playful squint at the table versus him or anyone else. It draws laughter, but barely Harry's. _He's_ over _that_. "No, but really," and my hand comes to my chest as if to absolutely express how truly I mean what I next say (because I do), "I've got no intentions of crashing your plans for the night! I've got some of my own, anyway. I should actually get going, wanted to get out and have a walk around, y'know?" I say that part to Harry, because I really don't want to take him away from his friends or his plans. As already evidenced to you, and to me, I am not my usual self, and I'm in no mood for a chit-chat with Harry, although it is good to see him as he is, casual and relaxed, blending in so easily.

Harry seems unsure of how to proceed.

I stay a few more minutes and finish my drink, then head to the bathroom, and, upon returning, say it's probably time I should go. Since I'm already standing, I give a light wave to Harry's friends and a hand-shake to the one I recognize. Truthfully, I have, at times, questioned the people that he keeps around. He's got a good group now, though, and has for the last couple of years. I'd hate to see him go back to people who aren't really his speed again, now that he's got this time to socialize. I'd loathe to see him mixed up with the wrong crowd going forward, because it'd be easy. Some of the people around him are surrounded by "yes" people--meaning "yes" to everything excess and elite. I am not that way at all.

It is one of the main differences between Harry and I: I am much the same as I've always been, have the same mindset as that kid I was ten years ago. Harry struggles sometimes.

I'm not sure I can really say or think these things anymore. In our time spent growing apart, he found people who he could become closer with than maybe even we were at a time. His prerogative, right? I look to him, lastly, as I reach for my sweater-jacket. He lifts it from the booth where it had been resting between us and holds it up and out as he scoots out from the seat. I take it from him and laugh at some anecdote one of the others has said about Harry's manners. I can't help but have love and contempt for them at the same time: do his manners need to be appraised in the way they do? Way to exploit something entirely intrinsic to Harry's entire existence. I'm tempted to counter their praise of him by taking him down a notch, but one look at his innocent doe eyes, and all thoughts dissolve. But anyway, "Yeah, thanks."

Maybe there's a bit of sass in my voice, but I am only human.

"But, um... are you all right?" He asks it in an unsure way, his register lower than usual, a few feet away from the others, now, as I get out of that general area and after we share a brief one-armed hug. Brief is a very apt descriptor. One light one-armed hug, a light pat on his shoulder, and I'm breaking away as though highly uncomfortable. Or highly despaired. Or...

"Yeah, sure," I return, already five feet away and mostly resenting that he asked me such a stupid, broad question. I _suppose_ I can't be mad about it. He's as far from me as I am from him. This is part of my problem, right now, though: Harry, himself, and the situation. I'm irritated with him even when I don't want to be. I resent him a little even though I have no reason to. Everything seems easier to him in general; he can adapt. He can let things roll off his back, shrug, and assure himself he can tend to whatever it is "later," and he's usually right. Things always seem to find a way to work for him.

I know he wanted a moment. He wanted to talk. He had a face full of questions: _are you staying here? Where? What plans do you have? How can I help? Did I miss a memo, though? Are you mad? At me, though? You seem mad at me. What the hell happened in the last two weeks? How's your mother? How about this weather, huh?_ But even if he asked any of that, I surely wouldn't let on, because there's a wall that built right back up; self-inflicted, of course: the great rifts usually are. It's weird, because I'm never sure how interested he is in the happenings of my life. I've been vague with him for some time.

"The door is that way," I hear, having figured I left Harry in the dust twenty seconds ago as I stress-rub my forehead walking back toward the bathrooms again.

I'm surprised and turn to the right and look back. He's there, trailing about seven feet, watching with hesitation, arms crossed as awkwardly as I feel.

"There's a back door."

I saw it a bit ago.

Because I'd checked for it...

"I mean, why not use the front door?" He asks, motioning over his shoulder with his right thumb, his left arm crossed over his chest and holding onto the light sweater material.

Do I tell him the truth? I saw two girls with cameras subtly trying to snap a picture? Or admit that yeah, I don't want that picture to surface? He'll be upset to hear I think this way. Upset _that I care_. As if he doesn't. But that's the thing, though: I know it bugs the shit out of him, but he never lets on. He gets away with being "above" being mad. I am not so evolved!

I'm supposed to be over this, aren't I?

But I'm not. I'm still paralyzed by Harry, even when I don't want to be. It's not ever been his fault, nor mine, really... but... there it is... out by the front door... and for immediate social-media consumption. I mean, this isn't a new way to think. For the last five years, we've been "trained" to think things like this through--how we enter a place, how we leave a place, and with whom we do so. Anyway, I'm really not looking for anyone to know I'm here, and for the record, I pull my pea-green beanie out of my pocket and tug it down over my hair while Harry attempts to understand what's happening here. I, uh, don't know what to say. I'm so dead inside that I don't even want to say anything. I just want to stare at him, will him to understand everything I've thought and have yet to think, like Yoda, and disappear.

Leave, I do.

I walk awhile. Beautiful evening, really, but perfect for a light jacket and this hat.

Not really sure where I'm going until my phone starts vibrating again. I stop, hands in my pockets, and side-eye down to the right: honestly, this phone has got to be fucking with me. My phone only vibrates when it's on silent mode if it's one of six people, which means it's someone important. Yeah, all right, so I grab it out and start walking. It's a text message from my mum. In truth, I definitely need to at least shoot her a text and let her know I'm alive. I'm real close with my mum, but she knows I'm in a "place" and is trying her best to let me have some space for a couple of days to just be free of everything. I last talked to her yesterday, everything was fine--good, even. Yeah, well.

I'm out here floating around in fucking South Kensington like a fucking alien, all alone and having a breakdown.

_Love, know you're in a state. H texted. If he's worried enough to text me, perhaps I should be more worried? Not my place to tell him you're in a mood. Text him maybe? Call me if you need to talk. Love love you._

You've got to be fucking KIDDING.

Up goes my left hand in distress and down goes my right hand with my phone and back goes my neck and up go my eyes to the dimming sky. Must I ask you why, again, today, sky? 

W-H-Y?

I'm surprised by it all, though maybe I shouldn't be. I have Harry's family's numbers in my phone too, of course, but did he really text or call my mum like this? What a little shit...

Worrying my mother like this? Unacceptable... for Harry _and_ for me.

_I'm fine, mum. Ran into him at a restaurant, had a quick bite with. Didn't want to stay around and chat w/his crew._

Can't believe this guy, that he thinks it's all right after all of this shit to text my mum about my well-being.

_In London?_

_Left the house. Too big and empty. Staying at a hotel in S. Kensington. Don't worry about me. All's fine. Call you tomorrow._

I wait until after she's texted back to decide what's next. I would have called her if she were genuinely concerned. Then again, if she were, she would have called me first. This is no unordinary routine, after all, being moody and not always wanting to be at the beckon call of my phone... literally... until I desperately need stability and human interaction again. And so I walk awhile, and yeah, my phone vibrates a few more times, but I stop in at a coffee place for a rare cup without checking messages. I get all of the way back to my hotel without checking my messages or having had a double-take, at least that I am aware of. I take the old steps two at a time to get back to my suite, then lock myself in for the night, order a bit of take-out to the front desk, and relax.

Nice TV, solid bed, utter loneliness... the usual suspects.

Harry has texted. And it is kind of a weird thing, because for so long we barely texted... not because didn't want to, but because there was no reason to. If I needed to tell him something, I would literally just wait for an hour when I would inevitably run into him! It was like that with the other boys, too. There were exceptions, of course. I tend to not like to be entirely confrontational when I should be and instead choose times I shouldn't be. So times when I should have been, often I would do it through text, like if something needed to be addressed that I wasn't prepared to deal with in person.

 _Soooo_ and another comes right after: _What was that?_

Well, uh... oh, shit. How to reply? If I don't reply, chances are that it will wage a paranoia in Harry, then backfire on me, and then we won't communicate for three years. Likelihood: high.

_What was what?_

I can't help but kind of have a laugh at my response, because... yeah, there are a lot of things he could be referring to. Maybe.

 _Yeah okay. You pick where to start then._ I think about it, but another text of his is already rolling in. _We could talk awhile. Come to mine?_

_We aren't like that._

_W-o-wwwwww-o-w_

_Not enough offense intended to deserve that many ws, mate! That's just how things are now, right?_

_Wronnnnnnnnnnng_

WHOA, hey now; let's not get wild here.

_Way too many ns now. Get a grip._

_Let me help you help yourself help me understand_

I don't know what to say, so I wait to see if he says anything else. When he doesn't, I go for it. Why not?

_It's not on or for you to. Love the olive branch. It's lovely. But fuck off._

No text back. Nothing.

It feels so satisfying, honestly. It's true: so suddenly he wants to "talk awhile"? I've barely heard from the kid since this goddamn, godforsaken "break" began.

Might I regret this another day? Sure. But it's Harry: he's like my brother, which means he'll be forced to deal with me if he needs to: what a joy for us both!

I'm over it. 

Where's the remote?

 

 

 


	2. Electric Love

You know when you stumble across a new song that's so good it blows your mind? It's like a gate opening to a new world? That's how I'm feeling right now, but only halfway because I've recently discovered some excellent new music, though. Thank God I stumbled across something enough to pluck me out of the dark abyss I was falling into just a couple of weeks ago. Am I still fighting the good fight (myself)? Of course! Always. But there's a love-fest happening, this new emergence of happiness that I needed some time to start to understand again.

With nearly a month distance between being one of the boys, it seems less like being "away from the boys awhile," and more like... reality. Reality, anyway, in that I can go back to having a "normal" life again. I'd been waiting for a bomb to drop on me for those first couple of weeks and was unable to pull myself out or take off my One-Direction-colored sunglasses. I am convinced it's all real, now, because, wait for it... it's _real_ good.

I've spent the last two weeks with my family--literally, as I've been living with them. Apparently hiding out in South Kensington wasn't really my mother's cup of tea, and she insisted I come home. It was probably the best decision I could have made, that two and a half hours back to old Donny, because two or three days back there and everything was made perfectly clear to me about who I am and where I find myself this side of twenty. Granted, I've been living off of couch in a den they've all decided to call "Hobo's room" temporarily, but it has been really, really inexplicably comforting and lovely.

I just love this, just love spending all of this... time. I literally don't even do anything but pop up when a sibling or my mother is least expecting me to... and pester. Or help. Depends on my mood and theirs, too.

The sleep has been _top notch_. That couch is my partner in life right now: welcomes be back every night and doesn't want to let go come morning. Its got zero resentments and doesn't purport to know me any differently than how I want to be known. That's sort of the challenge lately... who am I to the people around me when I'm around all of the time? Sometimes I feel like I'm in the way... haven't let on that I feel like this to anyone--not my family, not my mates, not any of the other three people I shared the last years of my life with. No one would care anyway.

"Doll," says the waitress as I sit here at a diner in town, wrapped in a too-large sweater since I didn't to do my laundry and "so... mum" hadn't worked (like she's not got enough to do...), "for you."

I look down at the plate she's just put in front of me and smile, unable to help it, and hold both of my cheeks with my hands as my cheeks ache and my mouth waters.

She sets Liam's plate down in front of him and his beard, which I've been teasing him relentlessly about. It's impressive considering our age, really, "And for you."

"Thank-you much," Liam says to her, eyes puffy from a long night of catching up on sleep on the other couch in my mother's living room--such luxurious lives we live now!

"Yes, thank-you, love," I echo, catching her eye as she moves away with a pitcher of coffee to take to the next table--love her; she's been working here for as long as I can remember, and she still remembers my order. My stomach growls, and I clutch it with both open palms, high on the smell of breakfast foods galore. "I'm starving."

"Eat up, Tommo," he says, already with a forkful of eggs headed for his mouth, a piece of it falling onto his scarf--he's quick to gobble that up, too.

"Well, aren't you the most charming..."

Liam points his knife at me, briefly, before it heads down to his plate, eyes diverted, "This is so good, isn't it?" He's in love with his food.

I laugh, eyebrows lifted, watching him lean down to an intimate angle with his breakfast plate, "I support you, don't you know? Always and forever... no judgment. Have at 'em."

Liam swallows, finally, and sits back against his booth. Meanwhile, I've barely touched my plate, shoulders relaxed, still waiting on my tea to cool. I'm in no hurry for once.

"These eggs are..." He pauses and waits for me to catch on--and when I do, I groan about it.

 _Nooooooo._ "Don't. Don't do it." I grab a random condiment and point it threateningly in his direction. "Don't!"

"... egg-cellent."

And we're both laughing at the same thing without a word ever being spoken about it, and he's shaking his head, though I'm still clutching the bottle in my left hand.

"My God, mate, it's that bad, isn't it? I've got, like, each of you living in my head now!"

Liam's eyes are so scrunched I can barely see them anymore, which makes me hold my stomach for all its worth and just let out the laughter full-force, and groan, with a nod, and appraise with all of the fondness in the world at the reason we're laughing the way we are, " _Such_ a treasure, so many _gifts_. And that face he makes," I hold my stomach a little more tightly and widen my eyes, open my mouth, and pan like a wild animal at Liam, expectantly, as I've seen Harry do a THOUSAND times. No one could understand HOW MANY puns Harry has made in our time together as a group. He pretends he doesn't do that anymore, but if you give him an opening, he will take it! And if no one catches it, he will feel unappreciated and MAKE you address his cleverness. Such an idiot! "I hate him."

It would have been convincing if I had said it any other way than the loving way it stumbled from my mouth.

Liam snorts and puts his wrist over his mouth as he leans his head back, to keep from choking, his fork sticking up from his hand.

It takes a few moments for us to really calm down, and I finally indulge in a lovely warm breakfast from a place I've had seldom times in the last years. It's a real treat.

We don't speak anymore for awhile, because we're both too deeply consumed in the comforting welcome of a meal after the long walk getting here.

There's nothing but forks and knives hitting plates and quiet, distant conversation as a back-drop. It's amazing, just to sit here with Liam, to have him home here with me. We've never had the chance to do this--he's never really come here, to my hometown. Why would we have? It's cool to show him around some more, show him where I'm from. Niall has never been here, either. Harry has, but... that seems like ages ago. I don't remember much what we did. I think I probably brought him here to get some breakfast, though--look at me, lying to myself like I don't know that I EXACTLY brought him here and at what time of the day. It's horrible, how I talk to myself about him at this point.

Truth be told, I am definitely closer to Liam than anyone else. Before Liam, Zayn. We actually vacationed together. Texted. All the time. It's still hard to swallow at times. I basically lost my best mate this year. I’m still not sure how to cope with that.

His phone has buzzed a few times on the table, and eventually he pulls it over to him and takes a glance and then wipes his hands on a napkin, "Harry says hello."

I hum or something, mouth full of dry toast, not having expected that, and try to ask something or another.

Liam imitates me, closing his lips tightly and muffling, and then smirks in that way he does, smug with himself, but answers what he can make of my expression, "I'll tell him you said hi."

The bite of food is hard to swallow--not sure if that's because it's a mouthful of food or if it's my nerves, "Didn't want to hurt the lad's feelings, you know? Know he's dying to come to Donny, hang out with all of this glamour, get out on the town... great laundry joint right over across the street..." I joke, of my unshaven face, un-brushed hair, and too-large shirt--let's not even get to my sweatpants... and it gets a laugh out of Liam, who knows I'm just kidding. He doesn't need to say anything, doesn't go to give me assurances that things aren't like that. We all have our own relationships with each other. Liam and Harry are very big-brother and little-brother, and they're quite a bit closer than maybe any of the rest of us. They bicker a lot, though. "What's your boy up to?"

Liam starts to reply, starts talking about what Harry did last week, but then he stops himself, abruptly, looks at me, and goes, " _Hmm..._ "

"What's that about?"

Apparently he imitates my expression with a pointed squint, then drops it, "You could just ask him yourself."

I shrug because I've got nothin'. Nothin' at all to say. Unable to speak on the matter, even. _Gross._

Liam tilts his head all of the way to the left and puts his fork down on the side of his plate but doesn't let go, like a confused puppy with those brown eyes. Silence... so cold.

I, uh... we, uh... so... I guess humor is the way to go, "We email."

"You... what--mate? Did you just say... you _email_?"

"Yeah."

He repeats, "You... _email_?" He laughs about it and covers his face his with hand, embarrassed on my behalf, whilst I put on the straightest, most un-amused face I can manage.

"I catch up on his life when he does the group email. I'm sure I'm still in-enough to get an annual inoffensive Holiday card, though-- _Happy Holidays. All the love, Harry._ "

"You're not serious," he decides, with relief, because he knows I not-so-secretly enjoy all of those little things that make Harry Harry, and goes back to eating. We talk about each other, but never of Harry in proximity to me. That's my doing. I wonder if the other boys ever discuss it privately or with some others on our team. There have been rare times where Liam has let on that he does not appreciate being kept at quite an arms-length on the issue. "You're a caged animal, Tommo! Want some of this?" And he teasingly holds a piece of sausage up across the table in front of me, like trying to entice an animal behind bars.

I check his fork with mine, and the sausage plops unceremoniously to the table. I smile, the view of him smaller from my eyes because my cheeks are peaked and my mouth is tightly celebrating, "You know, Liam, you probably shouldn't tease caged animals; terrible, terrible zoologist."

"Five-second rule," he excuses the sausage on the table, stabbing it with his fork and dropping it back onto his plate. "I'll tell him you said hello."

"He's well, though?"

"Honestly, bro, I don't get it," Liam says, now, unhinged, like a switch has gone off, after he swallows, and sits back, fork and knife abandoned. "What's happened to make it like this? Like, I was sure everything was fine..."

"I don't know," I admit, and I'm not totally thrilled with it or the fact that I basically just invited Liam to throw out all of his cards and complaints on the small table between us. I am also not thrilled with my answer, because I know it's my fault Harry and I are the way we are right now. It's my fault for being a dick, and every day that has gone by is a day I've been waiting to see if Harry would text. There is something that has been liberating about not being the one to follow-up with him, though, because that is always what I've done. I have always been the one to make nice. He's free to text me back too, you know? As dumb as it is, if he wants to talk, he can make the move to be the one to initiate. Why does it have to be me? I am so tired of being a fixer in that way.

"Did he tell you I ran into him a couple of weeks ago?"

He shakes his head, "... neither did you.”

I mean, why would I have?

Why would I think to ask him if Harry had mentioned it?

"Ah, see, I'm telling you _now_ ," I say, pleased, and motion him to go back to eating with my fork. He's not convinced enough to do it yet.

"Cheeky," Liam shoots at me with what might, at another time, be approval. "It's real weird if you two aren't talking, like on principle and not just because other things are in the way."

"Yeah, yeah exactly. But it's not weird quite like _that,_ is it?" I try to disagree so he doesn't get in too-deep (the thought of which makes me panic slightly). "You and Niall are both in contact with him. It's all good." I sip on my tea. "It's all good." Repeating things as fact is surely a sign of a war being well-fought, no?

I can be convincing! I think...

"But you're you." No, _really_? He sees my expression. He deadpans at me about it and elaborates. "He, like, you know... he looks to you."

I'm not sure what he means by that, so I don't take the bait. If he "looks to me," then why doesn't he show it? He tries his best to be so aloof at times--I can never make heads or tails of where I stand with him, and that feels unstable and nerve-wracking all of the time. "He wanted to catch up. I, uh, honestly, Liam, I--maybe--blew him off... maybe. _I don't know_." And there it is, mama's-boy Louis, big-brother Louis, and there Liam is in response, shoulders slouching, because yeah, it's gone _there_. "There's just... something, you know." It's so quiet I barely hear it, what I know at heart, and I push my eggs around with my knife, appetite waning. "Just... _something_."

Liam decides not to broach the topic, anymore, about "what happened," because the source of that is complicated--something Liam has been kept a-distance to, as has everyone else who isn't Harry, who isn't me, "He'll want to know you got his hello at least, mate, you know. He wouldn't have just randomly texted me to tell you hello if he didn't want a reply." Or the attention. Or this very conversation! Damn, he's good. I make a fist and am tempted to bite it. "Give me something. Go." He pulls his cell phone into both hands, unlocks it, and looks up and to me expectantly. I'm being asked to compromise. Mmm, we've been here before. Five years of this!

"Tell him hello," I concede, "and let him know... I hope his olive tree is coming along."

" _Dorks_ ," he grumbles, with a legitimate roll of his eyes out the window to his right and my left and then down into his coffee before he goes at his phone keyboard with his thumbs. He finishes and sets it aside, and the conversation, as well. "What's up with your child, Tommo?" He asks me this relentlessly. "How's that nice gal you're on about?"

"You are the worst person," I return without even a blink, and he laughs into his plate about it, knowing exactly how to irritate me in the most perfect Payno way. Ho-hum!

"You're _unbearable_ ," but he's so happy about it, and my stomach hurts from the laughter of the last two days. It's so great to catch up with him

On our way back out into the cold and each with a bag to take home of our breakfast, I get a text while Liam is on the phone with one of the producers he's been working on tracks with.

It's Harry. He's on about his olive tree.

_It is coming along beautifully._

I feel my shoulders soften the smallest bit. What do I make of this? Where do I go from here?

_What wonderful news._

A week later my mum comes in from getting the mail with a package, and she hands it to me. Its got no sender's address, it's wrapped in a shitload of duct-tape every which-way, and I'm perplexed. After retrieving a knife from the kitchen, I plop the box down on the kitchen counter while one of my sisters watches on, waiting on me to return to our game of Monopoly, slice through the duct tape, then prop open the cardboard flaps. Paper-towel packaging, too! Clearly, this is a fragile item, and I comment so, aloud, to make my sisters laugh... and also to get them to go away, to lose interest if I seem like I'm not interested. It works, and I wait until they're gone to unroll.

It takes me a moment to realize...

It's... _an olive branch_

On a small price-tag-like note hanging from a piece of red and white floral string wrapped around it, is written, honest to God...

_Olive the love,_

_H(arold)_

My socks slide back on the cold tile until I'm bent at the waist and my elbows are used as leverage on the counter for stability, holding onto this small branch with both of my hands' fingertips and only my fingertips, staring at it with nearly-crossed eyes, trying to make sense of its mere existence and concentrating on it so hard that I can barely see straight, with the window of my mother's backyard in the background behind a plate of mediocre homemade cookies I had pretended to love.

I can feel myself trying not to feel at all. I'm done struggling against things--done struggling _against_. I don't have it in me anymore. It so pains me. All at once, a lightning strike at the center of my chest is as equal to the abrupt heat in my nose... the burst of light behind my eyes is so blinding I'm questioning whether I have ever seen Harry as I should have been seeing Harry, an evolved concept of who he is and who I am, and who we've been. The paradigm shift is complete; I've entered a new, strange, emotional state of being because of a twig! Granted, it’s a lovely, small, beautiful, unassuming twig!

"What is it, love?" My mother asks from a cautious distance across the kitchen, having been trying to decipher my reaction.

I've no words. I've... nothing.

"Lou?"

I look over, my spine having found itself straight again, devastated, try to say something, realize there's no point, and return to my Hobo-room with my peace keepsake.

Why do I feel further away from all of them, from everyone, than I have ever? At one time, this branch would have killed me _dead_ with friendship. I'd be beaming sunshine. Everything is different now. I have no faith in any of them. I have no faith at all, in anything. I'm not sure what's happening, can't make sense of the burst of rare emotion that just happened. What I thought before, an idea of having someone to talk to things about, someone objective... I mean, it doesn't seem like a terrible idea. And sure, doom and gloom has never felt so good as it does now, but I know it's going to get worse. I know that because I'm equal parts mad and heartbroken over a branch. And it feels awful.

I move over to a sitting chair and lower myself slowly down and lean over, elbows on thighs, and twirl the branch, eyes latched to it, wishing it could help me understand.

_Why does he have to be this way?_

Why do I?

  
  



	3. Lemon Monsters

I've had to scrub up pretty nice for the first time in weeks to attend this gathering this evening. I left the crypt of my Hobo den for good this morning, a bag of my go-to belongings still now stored in the trunk of the car I've just paid an exorbitant amount to park in a safe side-street of wherever-the-hell it is I've wound up tonight for this party. I wasn't allowed to get out of it, because I've been not-so-subtly called out for having disappeared off of the face of the earth. I'm not even sure who's going to be here--probably a mix of B-listers and Instagram-models, is my guess, but I have to admit, it feels good to be out again.

It's a party being held at a private residence of one of Harry's friends, which is apparently also where he's been staying on-and-off for about as long as I've been crashing on my mother's sofa. I see the appeal of this place. It's right exactly in the kind of place any young person with a social life would want to be. It's not on a main-street but real close to action, but also not so close there's not a bit of privacy. There's even a gate to the residence, though it's wide open and there are people milling about under globed string lights. There's faint music playing, too, so I know I'm in the right place.

I'm late. In my defense, I said I wasn't even sure if I'd get here at all. I was an "up in the air" in the case I came down with "I don't feel like going" syndrome real quick.

I look around the cement post, both of my hands in my jacket pockets, to get a look before going in head-first. It's chill, a front garden leading up the steps to the door, and there are a couple of topiaries sloppily decorated with string lights. It definitely adds to the ambience, though, as do the couple of empty bottles of wine sitting out on the steps as I walk through the open gate. There are two people sitting on the steps. I have no idea who they are, but as I get closer I glance and give a light close-lipped smile.

One returns it, interrupting her friend briefly, to point me up the steps, "Everyone's inside," and turns right back to conversation.

"Yeah, thanks."

I'm up the old cement steps and in through the door in no time. It's never going to be comfortable, walking through someone's front door who is not even a close friend of mine--or even someone I know! But I know they all know I've been invited. I know Liam, Niall, Harry, and a couple of others we're all friends with or know mutually are here. So I don't really have to know everyone, do I? I follow the voices through the bright entry. I think the walls are a blue color but there is so much lighting it could be a distortion of a green color. Well, whatever. It's a nice place, got great art on the walls--nothing I haven't seen before, though.

Is that color a jade? Ha, jaded... it would be fitting.

I peek into an open doorway to my right. It's a kitchen that opens up into an entire living area where it seems like everyone is. I've found the right spot, though, because Niall is here, hair wet so I almost don't recognize him. He's just in a black t-shirt and jeans, barefoot, leaning against the kitchen island, chin on his fist, listening as his girlfriend talks to one of her friends. He glances over at me, does a double-take and pops right up. He doesn't make a big deal or call attention to me, nor me to him. I smile, silently, and finally pull my hands out of my pockets in time to squeeze both of my arms around the freshly-bathed Niall and pat his sides with both open palms.

It's a long embrace, and when we pull back, Niall's left hand lightly and genuinely holds the right side of my face, eyes together. He's all bright blue and happy. God, I've really missed him. His face is like coming home in a way others aren't. It makes me feel things! Good things! Ah, what a change! There is hope for me yet. I don't let go of him, though, but all he does is drop his hand around my back again, over my shoulder, and squeeze me, then starts to spin us around so we're waddling like penguins, back and forth, our weight going from out left feet to our right, until I finally agree to let go.

His hands don't leave my arms, though, once I've unlatched myself.

We didn't even say a hello!

This is where we are, as humans together.

"Let me take your jacket," he finally realizes, well after I've greeted his girlfriend and introduced myself to the others, and instead of waiting for me to take it off, he's leading me back out the door I came through. I go with that--he seems to know what's happening here, which is good. There is a coat closet right out here in the hallway... one which people actually use for coats. What a concept! I pull one arm out of my coat, then the other. I take a hanger while Niall is making a space for where it should go. I can't help but notice all of the shoes in the closet, too.

"Shoes too?"

"Harry's friends," Niall jokes his confirmation, and I toe off my shoes in response and pop them in the closet.

"Things are going well with her, eh?!" I ask, looking back towards the kitchen briefly as I stand up, in all seriousness. "Happy to see it, babe. You deserve it."

He doesn't even answer me, eyes on mine. He's smiling, though, but there's a tinge of red on his face, like he's twelve. He's still so smitten with her. I couldn't be more pleased about it! I kind of laugh, too, to put him at ease, to say that I get it, no words necessary. He takes me by the elbow and starts to guide me further down that same hall, towards another doorway which inevitably leads into the rest of the living space I had seen from the kitchen area. It's not as many people as I thought would be here, maybe like twelve, so there are probably about twenty people here now, including Niall and I. It's a rather crowded space, though. It'll make for a cozy evening, for sure.

The room is warm, not at all as modern or sharp as the entry or the kitchen--there are pillows, throws, and a really healthy fire at the heart of it all. There are some people on the floor, sitting in various states with pillows in, on, or nearby. There's that music playing--I must have heard it through an open window, because it's not actually too loud. It probably allows each of the little private conversations between people some privacy, though. Real nice atmosphere, and I nod approvingly.

Niall doesn't let me go to greet anyone. He immediately drags me into a conversation with someone who claims to be as into the Rovers as I am. I mean, it's actually cool, but I'm real tempted to go over and say hello to the people I know first. I guess they can wait, though, so I stand here and engage until I'm noticed. I turn right and look over. My attention is being mass-asked for. And I mean, yeah, I have probably definitely been lower-key in communication than the rest of them. Even I know that that has been unexpected, and even though I'm standing here with a guy who's my new footie soul mate, arms crossed in my overly-long sleeved light sweater, they don't care.

I'm being seized by hands and arms and lipstick kisses.

I'm all over it, though, and let myself get swept up in it all again, because my heart hurts a little. I'm so happy to see their faces again.

I get pushed away from Lou, as if she's done with me and my face, satisfied by her two lipstick imprints on both of my cleanly shaven cheeks, and she starts to scold me for pulling an "invisible man." I can only laugh and move on, lastly, as I lean over the back of a mid-century-modern couch and meet Liam's cheek and exchange a kiss with him and move on to Harry, who was once seated next to Liam but has gotten up and come around the back of the couch, tilting his head down and then flipping his hair back up with his right hand to waste some time until I got to him--yeah, I saw. Of course I saw.

He tries not to smile and ends up scrunching his nose instead.

He's wearing a dark dusty-rose button-up, half of the buttons at the top and bottom undone, which looks two-sizes too big but works on him, the sleeves on both arms rolled up, which I see as he lifts his right arm towards me, coming in close. I look right into his face, briefly, and even though I say, "hi," as I slip my right arm between his arm and side to hug him, he doesn't even actually look at me, just by me like he's just seen someone he vastly prefers walk in. Will I ever get why he does this with me? No. But I don't even care, because I miss him so much I actually squeeze his lower back with my right arm, wrinkling up all of that expensive cotton, though he's only got one arm casually wrapped around my shoulders and no grasp at all, and then pull the extra material taut with my right fist.

For good measure, I use my left arm, too, since he's not giving me proper love, here, and hug him fully until it's tight.

I'm squeezing.

I attempt to lift him.

He laughs, now, right in my ear, and I finally get a squeeze of his hand on my left shoulder--and--wait for it--his other arm, too.

I get a kiss in front of my ear for that moment I manage to get his toes off the ground, but then he's back down on his feet and he's back to just one-arming me.

_I'll take it!_

Fucking lemons, man. He's always fucking exuding these lemons, a citrus-y, fresh, maybe even powdery scent--it's _everything_. I hadn't even realized I was missing it.

It's best I let go, however, since he's so casual about his affection. I don't want to make it awkward by not letting go for an extra second or ten. My left hand comes back to my side as a pull away, turning to the open left to greet another hug. I never actually let go of Harry with my right arm, though, at an awkward angle, already accosted by another kissing male who goes by the name of Ben. I take it, too, but when it's done, an abrupt tug pulls be back about a foot. I go with it, realizing it's Harry's arm. It's been there the whole time, over my shoulders. He's moved back to sit against the back of the couch and has brought me along, it seems, and his arm tightens around my neck as I talk to Ben, ignoring Harry.

It's just what Harry wanted, anyway. He's still talking to Liam over the back of the couch like he's not holding me hostage here, with the heel of his palm firmly pressed against my slightly exposed collarbone.

"We really didn't think you were coming," Ben says, standing against the wall with beer in hand.

"I said I was," I pretend like I never had any doubts about coming--you know, like even the ten minutes I sat indecisively in my car after I'd parked. So Ben's talking to me, but I've got a thumb dropping under the hem of my light black sweater, right below my collarbone, and then a couple of fingertips tangling in the material. Meanwhile, I am not sure what to do with my arms and hands so I tug awkwardly at the bottom of my sweater. Ben notices, but I pretend not to, mostly because--what the? Where did this come from? Harry and I barely ever even share an affectionate hello anymore, so naturally it is slightly disconcerting to be on the receiving end of physical affection. But it feels really good...

I wonder, how much has he had to drink?

That eighteen year old inside of me feels like he was just tucked in and put to bed a happy kid.

As I talk to Ben, I swear that Harry's grip around my shoulders starts to get tighter and tighter, and eventually I burst, "You're choking me."

"His love is suffocating you?" Ben tries--which is saying something, because he's been as weird as Harry has been the last years with me.

"Love, hate, it's such a thin line..."

Harry doesn't even stop talking to Liam to acknowledge what I've said, but he, and everyone else, has heard, because they're laughing about it, and when my hands come up and place over Harry's forearm, to get him to let go, he releases the material of my shirt. I go to relax, to pull away, to gather myself and probably attempt to pick a faux-fight with him, but then I get a pressure against my chest, across my shoulders, and his huge hand wraps entirely around my opposite shoulder, so his whole arm has a tight grip, and there goes my balance, and his balance, but I just go with it, in disbelief, as my feet come back off the floor, and after a fall, here I am, looking up at the ceiling, having been pulled over the back of the couch, landing comfortably on an overly firm couch cushion and halfway over Harry.

Harry's still got a grip on my shoulders, and he's laughing harder than anyone else.

Our knees are bent over the top of the couch, and he lifts one of his, casually, and then pushes Ben away with his foot, who has come closer.

Ben grabs at it, and they fight a bit.

"Seems about right," Liam decides, then, face beat red, his hands coming down from rubbing over his face, from the other end of the couch.

How do I feel about this?

I turn my face to the left and look at Harry, to observe. And that's when I realize I literally haven't been this close to him in probably two years, and my gut does something. There's a twisting inside, a level of anxiety that flares up, and too much emotion by the look on his face--happy--he's always happy with e _veryone else_. I rarely get that, if ever. He's still laughing, mostly at Ben. I'm a prop. I mean, cool, I get it. I look quickly away, then, pat Harry's arm to let go and start to shift to get away, to pull my legs over the back of the couch and turn myself around and upright.

He doesn't want to let go. He's having lots of fun, of course. He's good at that.

"For real, though," I say under my breath, and struggle.

He finally releases me because he has no choice, and I'm more than happy to leave him playing with Ben, his favorite past-time. But I'm awkwardly positioned, of course, still maintaining a good fake jovial expression. But there's Niall, leaning over the back of the couch, too, and he has both hands out helping me get a hand up. If he can see past my rare annoyance, he hasn't let on. Good, let me fool everyone. My usual routine! Fuck, what has happened to me?

Harry's not so happy anymore. He's given Ben a light kick away, that I see as I sit back upright, putting my feet on the ground. I can't help but look to my right, at upside-down Harry. He's looking right at me, and it's a bit shocking. There's an intensity there, the way his eyebrows are always fucking quirked about to make him look like he's thinking super hard or just really badly needs a pair of glasses. His usually petal-y mouth is closed firm and flushed hot pink like maybe his cheeks--be it the alcohol or the lying upside down. It's because no one is looking anymore, except maybe Ben if he hasn't gotten Harry's abrupt hint to fuck off.

I check, eyes barely on Harry for a full second, looking back over my right shoulder and up past Harry's bent knees over the back of the couch.

Ben's not there anymore. He's leaving but not without calling Harry a twat. Whatever, this is nothing new for them. Their relationship is weird to me.

It shouldn't be, though. Every male I've ever known has come to disgustingly adore Harry. It is not difficult at all, because Harry is easy to like and easier to love.

Harry stays exactly where he is, but I look directly across from me and listen to the conversation being started, and that's where my attention stays. Everyone's does, listening to Liam tell a story about the lady who sat with him on his flight in from the US yesterday. Niall's already heard it, and he's just laughing so hard from another couch, encouraging every twist and turn of Liam's story like the best is yet to come. And for those couple of minutes, I literally am so into it, I actually forget that Harry is still right there and listening too. It's like old times, when I didn't have anxiety about Harry less than five inches away from me, upside down and brilliantly buzzed.

"You want a drink?"

What?

Who said that?

_Oh!_

My eyes shift down to the right and over, and I go to say something, looking at the furry shag rug between my bare feet, but he interrupts me with a touch. He has bent his right arm up, between us, but really the back of his hand just winds up behind my upper arm, and his knuckles give the tiniest of rubs. My eyes dart up to his, all of the attention and anxiety in the world at my fingertips (or his), and find myself stuck there. It's like an open pulse. He sees it happen, too, just like I do. He's staring at me, and not at my mouth as if I've been talking, but right into my eyes. He's been waiting for eye-contact. Since it's so rare to get, and since I've not even had the chance for the last however-many weeks its been, I admit defeat and stare back.

It's an open stare.

What is happening here?

What is he thinking about? The same things? Anything? If I ask myself these question anymore, I'll go mad. Full-on _mad_!

His thumb comes further around the round of my sweater-covered arm, and he lightly thumbs at the material, just once, and his voice is more serious, at a whisper, " _Do_ you want a drink, _Louis_?"

Louis?

_Huh..._

"I'm fine, lad. Thanks, though," and I quickly look away--I barely made it five seconds! I'm weak. I'm not even aware enough that I keep from nervously rubbing my throat.

And then there's a heavy sigh. It's not dramatic or pointed. It's a real sigh, a frustrated one. It doesn't come immediately, rather after about ten, fifteen seconds. Harry's moving, and his movement has drawn light attention, but all he's doing is trying to get himself upright. I offer him a hand, literally, to steady his back as he swings his legs around the other side of the couch and keep it there until he's sitting. He's immediately over his knees, though, head hung, his hair down in front of him. He fixes it with both of his giant webby Spiderman hands. I watch, waiting for him to push it back up and over his head, but he doesn't. He just messes with it awhile after I've removed my hand from the warm place on his upper back it nicely sat on.

Liam's story is getting to the good part, Niall insists loudly, clapping, so my attention only half goes back to Liam because the corners of my eyes obsess elsewhere.

He finally pushes his hair back with his right hand but he also sits up all of the way, pulls his hair back into a bun, then stands up and slides away and around the couch.

He's gone, as graceful and sly as he can be when he wants to be.

I'm leaned over my knees, eyes back on the rug beneath my feet, beneath my ten intertwined fingers. I dig my heels in to ground myself to the moment, to try to keep calm.

And so, nearing nine or so, I've met this really great girl, one of Niall's girlfriend's friends. I've seen her around at award shows and the like, so we're not total strangers. Don't get me wrong, I am slightly involved elsewhere with someone else, but it's kind of open-ended right now, so it's not hard to do a bit of fishing and flirting, right? It's nothing serious, just a bit of fun for the night. It's not actually going anywhere--God, haven't I learned that lesson? I've learned it too well. And yeah, I'm one-hundred percent sure she's giving me all of the signs that this can go as far as it wants to go, but... the night is young, and I'm not in that place right now. But a bit of flirting might do. If I come across a nice buzz, I may be tempted to reassess the situation.

I walk into the kitchen for the second time, to get myself another glass of wine.

Harry's sitting over on one of the benches that seats the kitchen table, looking out the windows and leaned over his knees, his back to the rest of the empty kitchen.

"All right?"

He glances at me in the reflection, then goes back to watching at a distance to the couple of people outside on the patio, " _Wonderful_ ," and every syllable is drawn out. Yikes...

I walk over after filling my glass halfway. I get near to him, around his side of the bench. There's an empty wine bottle between his bare feet. So, here's Harry--he's secluded himself from his vast amount of friends and loyal disciples, with an empty bottle of wine, staring out at the night with nothing behind his eyes. His fingers, rings, and hair are all seemingly twirled up together on his chin, most of his hair pushed over the left side of his head. Oh no, "Eh?"

"Mmm," he agrees with my assessment.

My fingertips lift to itch an imaginary--or at least irrational--flush under my neck. I rub there a moment, my other hand holding the wine glass by its rim down at my side.

Harry drops his arms from where they've been. He bends, grabs the neck of the bottle with just one long index finger, then stands up and turns toward me, "Window's free if you'd like to jump out of it."

I glance at the bench he's left behind, and the window, too, for clues as to monster-Harry's unannounced arrival. He slips by me to get to the recycling and tosses the bottle in. I watch the entire time, zoned-in like a hawk, because I'm fucked, here. I'm fucked.

He washes his hands in the sink.

All I finally get out is, " _Hey?_ "

He turns back around, jaw clenched to the right, and wipes his hands dry with a washcloth he has found lying around on a counter, eyes completely on me in return.

He sizes me up, just goes on and does it because we're alone. He wants to see if he can level with me, but he's not asking me if I'm ready. He doesn't care. He's asking himself, and out of nowhere, carefully, comes, "I don't know how it got this bad." He's done it. He opened up. It's out there. Exposed to oxygen. Pandora's box getting the unlock. That's all he's going to give me about it--just tells me to jump out a window and then addresses that he's unhappy with--with which part of me, actually, if not all of me? If not even just sharing breathing space with him, by the look he's directing at me. And honestly, only because he's had a bottle of wine. "It's a shame it's come to this, that we can't even be in the same room, that you can't even have a laugh with me sometimes."

It's really happening.

I put my wine on the kitchen island so I don't drop it. Or throw it.

"I never wanted that," he tries to tell me, and I know he's not lying. I also know that two years ago he revolted, and he has pretended, ever since, that only _I'm_  the problem here.

This is the part where I'd always put on one of those masks I wear, where I'd chipper-up and try to set everything right, but... neither of us is in that sort of mindset.

I hate to see him this way, but it is what it is.

"I tried to make nice," he says.

The laugh that escapes my mouth sounds as bitter as it tastes, "That's some _bullshit_."

His eyebrows lift.

He's mad.

I'm mad.

"I did try," he emotionally breaks, his voice low. His face is firm. There's no confusion, no misunderstanding. "Everything's done now, and I have no idea what to think."

Are we serious right now? I've had three glasses of wine to his bottle of wine--whatever gets said, right now, isn't going to better the situation. I just need to leave.

I am that evolved, at least.

"You always walk away like that," he says, as I near the kitchen doorway, indicating that no, he's not done here. "Are you going to keep doing that?"

I look back at him, staring, entirely, now, at the man in the center of the kitchen ten feet away, "I'm glad you care to suddenly want to talk, even if it's only after you've had an entire bottle or two of wine, Harry; great break-through we've had here."

He sniffles a bit, hands hanging at his sides. There's nothing happening. He's a scarecrow in an open field, "It was you. You pushed and pushed."

"I know."

" _It's your fault_ ," he says again, as if to make sure I understand.

_I do._

"Love," my hands are overlapped on the center of my chest out of nowhere, because letting him go on to believe that, or letting him think that I accept sole responsibility, is not going to help either of us, "I know what I've done, but I also know you're going to say it's all on me until you're blue in the face, because that's what you've _been_ doing. That will never change the fact that this is _two-_ sided--this _mess_ ," my voice cracks twice somehow, having to refer to my entire relationship with him with such a word, "is _two_ -sided."

"You don't get to call me that," his voice wavers, not even taking in the argument I've made yet. He readjusts his hair to pretend he's not emotional.

I know what he means, which is the devastating part about all of this, "I use it for everyone else."

"It doesn't matter. I can't be everyone else to you. Not then. And not now. I don't know what to do with that or with you."

Exactly. _Exactly_.

He pinches his bottom lip with his left hand, then the bottom half of his face, and soon he's roughly rubbing his entire face with both hands.

I deal with this weight, too, of a collapsed friendship, every time I near him. At least, before, when we were always forced to be around each other, it allowed a levity about everything. We joked, genuinely, and had fun, patched things up and moved on, and... but now, with time... what the fuck happened? Scar tissue pushing violently at the surface, that's what this is. An infection, even, that needs to be dealt with.

"Do--do you really want to do this right now?" His expression is painful. "It's this close." He means the space between us, that it's not going to be hard for this to get out of control real fucking fast.

He's tense.

He's real fucking tense.

He's got a point. But I mean, yeah. Yeah, I do want to pick a fight. I want to pick a fight or fifty. But if that happens, there'll be a blow-out. And I'm terrified of a blow-out. I can't bounce back from that. That's how bands get ruined--and what have I got then? Our friendship is already basically over. Maybe Harry could bounce back; he's got enough people around him who can tell him he's got it all. I can't lose Harry for good, even if I've already lost him as it stands. I want to tell him that he's the one who started this tonight. I want to tell him so bad. But something's happening, here, on his end, and I'm not sure what that is. I don't trust either of us.

I'm the more sober one. I need to be in control, "Can I go now?"

"Sure," he motions to the door, eerily calm and collected, his otherwise usual demeanor totally on its head, "get the fuck out of my sight."

Everything in me chokes up.

I mean, we've had our fights--we all have--but this... this isn't even a fight. There's just so much going on behind it that it's ten times worse than what I'd much rather.

Neither of us is particularly hot-tempered--the opposite, probably, which means, unfortunately, that this is long-overdue.

We just stare at each other for about ten seconds, neither of us moving. I want to say so much. But I can't. We're past words. We're so mad at each other.

"I should leave," I realize, then, and I don't have to try to excuse the crack in my voice or the sniffle, rubbing at my left eye with the heel of my palm. Fuck.

Harry had been happy until I'd gotten here.

He's not going to be happy the rest of the night if I'm here, and I'm not going to be happy regardless of where I end up. And I see his left hand go up and his head go back, as if to say that that's ridiculous, that I don't have to leave. But honestly, there's no coming back from this tonight. I basically just got confirmation that he can't stand me. If I stay, it will be like every other time we're in a room and _tolerate_ each other, forced to get along like professionals, because that's what we are. But this is a different setting--and most of these people are Harry's friends. This is Harry's life, and I don't really fit in anymore. And he doesn't want me here, even if he says to stay, to say it's not that big of a deal. It is, though. It is.

To me.

I've got some ugly hot heat threatening up my cheeks and building around my eyes, and I'm almost gasping for air, abandoning my glass of wine on the kitchen island that was right to my right. He goes to say something, I think, but I don't want to hear it. I turn, concentrating particularly on every step I take, every touch of my feet onto the warm wood and runners in the long entrance hallway being a further step away from prickly electricity.

I could leave without saying anything to anyone, sure, but I'm pretty sure that'd be rude. I go back and forth on it as I find my shoes in the coat closet. As I lean down, my right hand clutches my chest, and I quickly manage to wipe away a few stray, traitorous tears that have escaped with the sleeve of my hanging jacket.

It comes off of the hanger.

" _Yo_! Are you going out for a smoke? I'll come with."

 _Fuuuuuck_.

I blow up onto the rest of my face, as if that'll do it, as if that'll clear it all, dry the tears up or my clumpy tear-coated eyelashes... yeah, sure, that'll do it. I pull my jacket on, turning my back to Niall, "Uh, I--I'm gonna head back to my hotel."

" _What_?" His friendly, teasing, playful tone is gone, and he's close all of the sudden. "Why?"

"Just, I, uh... exhausted."

"But you just got here a couple hours ago. I haven't even had time to sit down with you yet, Lou--come on, stay. You can crash here, share the couch with me! Like old times, eh? _Ehhh_?" He's trying to entice me, which, well, at any other time, would have worked.

He's not going to let this go. He's already tugging me to turn around. I try to resist, but knowing that'll just be more awkward, I turn towards him, eyes up on the stainless steel light on the high ceiling, and I push all of my hair back off of my forehead with my hand once it has done a once-over of my entire face, including a fresh set of wayward tears. His hands come onto my shoulders from having been trying to turn me by my arms. He's all love and concern, and my stomach hurts from it. Just all of this fucking emotion, it just comes out in a wave--weeks of being dead inside... three hours back here and I'm done for. I'm done-in.

Niall's eyes are so huge, at least that I can tell from behind blurry eyes. I'm not even embarrassed, because I wasn't lying.

I _am_ exhausted.

"Buddy, whoa. _Whoa_ , buddy," is all he says, and he doesn't even ask what's wrong because he's too startled.

I'm in a hug, and all it does it get a small honest little sob out of me. For a few seconds, I hug back, then pull away, sniffling, and Niall follows me towards the door. He's not sure what to do, looks like he's trying to get me to let him go get someone--says something about Liam--or Harry--and then I shake my head at him and put my hands on his chest and force a smile and a laugh, since I'm a pro at that. He's not okay with it, though, and puts his hands right over my hands and squeezes them, trying to understand. Yeah, me too.

"I'll text Liam."

"What about everyone else? What should I say?"

"I don't care."

"Jesus Christ," Niall says back. I can see that he has no fucking idea what the fuck in the fucking fuck has happened or what to do. "Fucking hell."

"Love you, you're a good lad," I say, and I take his face, really, and give him a kiss on each cheek in front of my palms and then let go. "Call you tomorrow or something--we can--we can do lunch if you haven't got any plans."

"Please," he says, and he follows me outside and all of the way to my car, hugging himself or rubbing nervously through his hair, looking back to the residence.

In the streetlights, before I pull away, after another hug, I see a glimmer in his eyes, too. He knows what he's known for awhile now.

I'm not sure how I even get to the hotel, but I get there, at first in a literal tear-induced haze, and then a daze when the initial tears have surpassed. I get into the hotel, too, eventually, with my bag, which, as soon as I've got the door closed behind me, I lightly let drop down to my right. I walk forward a few feet, emotionless, and drop my car keys and my wallet down on the small entry table. I look from left to right, then to the window thirty feet away. It's so quiet. It's too quiet. Halfway over towards the window to get to the air unit, I just stop and sit down on the very end corner of the queen-sized bed and lean down over my knees, hold my chest, and just cry. Everything is so bad. It's been so bad with Harry, which has made everything else difficult. But now it's very real, and now I'm allowed to get out some irrational tears about the whole thing.

I get to bed eventually, manage a decent night's sleep, and wake up around ten to a ton of missed messages and a few phone calls. I scroll through them--most of them sourced by people from last night. Since I am either dead or indifferent inside where they are concerned, I don't reply. I have no reason to, honestly. But I do text Liam, Niall, and Lou.

I wish I could go back to sleep. I'd do anything to be back asleep. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_.

I turn over on my side and try to casually train hop on the rail going to sleepy-town, but it's not happening. I get up and grab a shower--a tepid one--get out, change into another sweater I grabbed out of my bag and a fresh pair of jeans. I respond to Niall's text about seeing if I still want to get lunch and agree. I know for sure that he probably already had lunch plans with his girlfriend--I heard about it last night--but he doesn't let on. If he cares enough to cancel on her to spend some time with me, I'll treasure it. I leave my hair mostly damp and combed back and slightly to the side, grab my wallet, hotel room key-card, sunglasses, and I go. This is what I need, a good long walk out and about. I walk for God knows how long until I get to this little cafe Niall said to meet him at. He's already inside and seated when I get in, taking my sunnies off and putting them in my jeans pockets, glad to not have had to have a jacket today since it's such a weirdly warm day following a bunch of frigid ones.

We talk for hours about everything--everything in our lives. He knows everything anyway. About everyone. And vice versa. So we catch up at a table in a small garden at that restaurant until the weather changes and we need to be heading back. He thinks he's got me for the whole day and insists we head out to a club or a bar tonight. I'm not convinced, but he's leaving the invitation open in case I change my mind.

I am feeling a bit cheerier when we're out walking around five o'clock.

"What do you think?" He asks, of coming along with he and Harry on an adventure to Germany in February.

"Thanks," I say, and yeah, I realized hours ago that he really has no idea how bad things are between Harry and I. I've not had the heart to tell him it's a real thing, that it's as bad as it is. He knows we had some words last night, but I'm a fantastic actor and played it off like it was just a normal spat. It's not like we haven't had a million of those together that we've all gotten over in a span of minutes or, at worst, days. This goes way deeper. "I'll probably be in the states to visit the baby."

"When am I going to get to meet this baby?" His smile is so huge, and I return it and shrug, face warmed by the rare glimpse of golden sun through the buildings.

Eventually we part ways with a few more laughs and a stop for biscuits, which I take a bag of back to my hotel, and I eat them for dinner while I scribble lyrics down.

My phone vibrates, just as I'm thinking I should maybe call my mum and get in a little chat, so I grab it, figuring, in that weird mother-way, she had ESP and texted me first.

" _Fuuuuck._ "

It's Harry.


	4. Open Doors

I don’t necessarily WANT to be at Harry’s... _but I’m at Harry’s_.

It started three nights ago, that text message from him that abruptly collided with my phone. It'd started off with an apology--him to me. I hadn't wanted want to take the bait. I had, though, because his apology had been logical-enough. He’d had a lot to drink, he’d said, and was “little embarrassed” for how things had transpired. There was no apology for what was said, and I knew there wouldn’t be because he wasn’t sorry for what he’d said. Nor was or am I. Whether or not that was all aided by the alcohol, he had definitely thrown in something about how “we’ve both been having too much of that,” which managed to get a blatant denial out of me. Me? What do you mean, Harry? I’ve surely been the _pinnacle_ of sobriety lately…

The following day, though, he'd followed up with another text, and that’s what brings me to his door-step now. That many texts from Harry had been certainly strange, and I'd jokingly told him so. He's said he wanted to have a low-key chill day, try to catch up with me and wanted me to come see the new place he’s snagged for the rest of the winter.

I’m _obliged_ to hear him out, too--I mean, those were his words, not my own.

Part of me feels like I’m walking into a trap, though. For sure, if that night at his friends’ flat was anything like this will be, things are going to get spoken about that have been quietly festering, so I’ve had to prepare myself. I’m nervous in general, because we don’t hang out too much anymore by ourselves. No part of me had thought that not coming was even an option, though. He is one of my closest friends, whether or not we’ve been on great terms lately, so I got here when he told me too, and the door opens nearly as soon as I’ve knocked, catching me mid-deep-breath and with a hitched gasp.

He’s got on a big smile, “Hey,” and he draws out his word for about five seconds, a total goofball. The door is wide open immediately, and he’s motioning me in, in dark plaid flannel pajamas and a simple sweatshirt. I look down at his feet, though, before I take one step into his flat to take him up on his offer.

_Bunny socks!_

I look right up to his face, my own already aching, unable to find the words, “...”

“I thought they were a little, like… cute or...” he lifts the toes of his left foot and flexes his foot back and forth, though I’m unsure whether he’s showing them off or reassessing his decision to wear them. Seeing the excuse is barely enough (as if I’d actually judge him for this!), he reconsiders. “Still feeling under the weather. Thought these seemed like a pick-me-up.” He closes the door behind me, and now behind him, as well. There’s no tension. I’m unsure what happened or why, but… it’s not here anymore, at least on my end. Perhaps the other night was what had been needed, to just get out in the open that we have issues with each other that should probably be addressed when there is less alcohol involved.

I’ve heard rumors that he’s not happy with my behavior. I’d dare him to bring it up, though.

But then, what if he actually does? Willingly, at that?

The place is quaint and spacey, but it’s not overtly large or at all showy. Tall ceilings, big windows. He’s got nice taste, not at all flashy or over-the-top.

He’s old money in new money clothes.

“Smells amazing,” I say, dazed on the scent of vanilla extract and baked goodies. He knows just how to trick me! Does he know me this well? _Suspicious_.

“Baking some magical chocolate chip something-or-anothers,” he explains, taking the lead down the wide and weathered wooden planks which have a warm creak about them.

“‘course you are,” I say. I look around as he hops up two stairs out of the entry into an open-space floor-plan with a wall of windows to the left, a great view of the street below from the living area between the windows and the kitchen over to the right. There’s not much around--Harry’s a bit of a minimalist, whether or not he ever intended to be that way. Then again, so am I. Things I’ve collected over the years from various places are all stored, still, back at my mum’s house--not even in my own house; I’d always been too worried that someone would break into my house and steal my important things while I was gone.

I assume his things are all somewhere, still, too, and will remain that way until he settles permanently.

He’s over at the oven, bent over and peeking in at whatever chocolate-chip baked goods he’s indulged himself in--and me too, I guess. I just stand here, at the top of the two stairs, hands in my pockets, watching as he leisurely grabs the pot-holders and goes about his business, giving me another good few moments to ground myself, yet again. It’s like he knows what I need, sometimes, and gives me that space. I’m unsure if that’s real or if it’s my mind filling in the gray spots with color.

I squint at him, though he has no idea, trying to make sense of this sight in front of the huge windows behind him. He fits in, somehow, with the dreary brightness outside.

It’s Harry.

I mean… _it’s Harry_.  
  
_But_ it’s Harry.

Some weird laugh is coming out of my mouth about it, and I sigh and pull my hands out of my pockets and unzip my jacket, one of my better purchases in the last few months--it’s not totally like me, to splurge on clothing this way, but it is what it is. Quality purchases, I’ve been told, are worth it. So I go right back down the stairs, making myself at home without direction, and hang my coat up where I saw his hung, kick off my shoes, then run up the steps and slide over towards him in my very non-bunny, very stylish socks. I’ve given him zero warning about it, but he nearly accepts my collision with a welcoming left arm.

He shoves me away with his left hand to keep me at a distance away from the magical desserts on the baking sheet that he just took out, though. My mouth is watering like a sprinkler, watching all of that gooey chocolate ooze onto the parchment paper. Oh God, _I need them_. I need, I need. But he’s not letting me at them, so I casually stroll around the kitchen island, on my best behavior, bringing my elbows up and trying to distract him from my intentions as I dance around.

“You’re not SO opaque,” he laughs at me, glancing at me with his best failed dead-pan to accompany his perfected monotone.

“Dunno what you mean, mate, though, do I? Me, I’m just… leaning over the counter… to relax…”

He smacks all four of my fingertips away with a wooden spatula as they creep over the counter, encroaching upon what I view as my territory and my rightful property. It’s not like he’s going to shove ten of these in his mouth like I am--and wow… wait… did he make these just because I’m over? Realizing, I use all of my willpower to withdrawal my hand and lower my head in defeat. If I am worthy enough for him to make me these brownies, surely I can wait for them to cool instead of just grabbing at them.

“Wise decision,” he tells me, oh-so-seriously, as he waves an oven mitt over top of them.

“Is that going to speed up the cooling time, Harry, y’think?” My fingertips start to walk on the counter. “I can test the temperature… pretty good at it… no, wait! C’mon!” I go ahead and sprawl my arms across the counter, towards him, towards the delicious little treats that he has now moved further away from me. He acts like he’s kidding, but he leaves the tray over underneath the kitchen window before he comes back. He’s pleased with himself, too. Whatever! For good measure, too, I snarl at him, top lip lifted, and prop back up on my elbows. I fix my gaze on him carefully.

He tosses one over-mitt at my face, then the other, and he leans down on the opposite side of the counter, mirroring my very specific position.

My eyebrows go in, man. _I’m onto him_ , “I’m outraged.”

He imitates me, but then smiles, out of nowhere, really, for the first time since the door opened, “You look happy.”

_Oh._

“It’s nice to see,” he says, too, quickly, so I understand he means it as a good, non-leading topic of conversation.

Unsure what to say to that, and not sure I want to confirm or deny feelings to him, I return, “You seem rather chipper.”

“It’s the bunny socks.”

“‘course it is.”

He laughs, now, outright, and pulls his spine straight, open palms on the counter following in his wake, “Can I interest you in a glass of milk?”

Milk? God, “If you’re going to let me at the magical chocolate-Harry-brownies, yes. Otherwise, no. A beer will do?”

“ _Don’t know what that is_. Don’t have it in my house. Milk, juice, water...”

But the thing is, I don’t know if he’s kidding or not! He delivers these lines so seamlessly.

“Okay, mum,” I joke at him, easily, knowing he means no harm at all, and force myself upright, too. “Milk will be fine, please.”

“You’ve got hands.” He hands me out a plain glass and motions me to the refrigerator to do it myself, take care of it myself. Well then! But I grab the other glass off of the counter (his), too, with another finger and then pull them both over to the counter beside the refrigerator. I go in search for milk, and upon opening the refrigerator… total depression. I groan, never having meant to do so aloud, but he laughs before I can try to pass it off as a cough or something.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he warns, but it’s barely a threat.

“You’re severely lacking any and all delicious foods in here--are those sprouts? Dear Harold...”

“You’re saying this as I am slaving over a hot stove above a sheet of pure sugar.”

I’ll give him that!

“All right,” I agree, letting it slide and finding the milk between 2 bottles of cold-fusion “health” drinks. There are at least ten of them on this top shelf, and everything else that I can see--oh wait! He is redeemed! There are some fast food wrappers. All right, thank God. I haven’t totally lost him yet. I breathe a heavy dramatic sigh of relief as I put the milk back in the refrigerator and return to him with the filled glasses.

There’s a plain white napkin with a delicious treat sitting on top of it.

“Is this a trap?”

“No. Yes. No… _yes_ … no.” I go to grab it and he hits my hand with the spatula again. I grab at it and get it out of his hand. He darts right around the side of the island and nearly falls over, his long left leg catching him mid-trip with his hands on the counter. It’s all right, I’m here standing over him with the spatula back above my head, leaned down like I’m gonna beat him with it. As he’s laughing, all dimples and scrunched eyes, teeth and peaked cheeks, I, maybe, slightly, only a little bit… melt. No adult male gets me this way but Harry. It’s just him, the lovable bastard.

I get a flash of it, of life five years ago, so I murmur about it and lower my spatula at the pace of a sloth, conceding to him, and if he’s ever known any one thing in his life, it’s that he just owned my entire existence with that stupid smile, “Yeah, all right.”

“Ha ha,” and he’s gleeful about it, even! So pleased with himself…!

“ _Punk_ ,” I lift my shoulders as I walk away, putting the spatula down. I grab my brownie, making a big deal about stepping away from the situation.

“You love me a little,” he says, trying to make me feel better.

“Absolutely not. I’m leaving,” I tell him, packing three or four more chocolate masterpieces on my napkin and making out of the kitchen like I’m really going to leave. I get a wadded up napkin thrown at the back of my head, but really I just end up ignoring it and sitting on the side of the brown leather couch, looking out at the gorgeous view of the street below, impressed.

He comes over, too, with our glasses of milk and a plate of all of the warm treats and sits down on a chair near the windows, leaving the plate on the coffee table in front of him. I realize, looking around, that there isn’t a TV. I mean, at least not one I can see. I try to be discreet about it, but he sees me looking for one, grabs a remote, and… yeah, there’s the TV, coming up out of the floor.

“No, no, I like it quiet,” I say, instead, as he goes to turn it on, holding the remote out. I rather like the quiet, rather like the awkward, mildly sweet silence.

He doesn’t seem convinced, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, this is nice. Much better ambiance for our,” and with a mouth full of chewy chocolate and no grace at all, “ _heart-to-heart_...”

He laughs, lowering the remote back to the coffee table and sitting back, pausing mid-bite to throw me a look of utter delight that I am such a mess, “Is that what you think this is?”

“You made my warm chocolate-y things, so… yes.”

“I didn’t make these for you.” He smiles at me, then, lips tightly closed, and adjusts his loving gaze down to his own brownie. He thinks he’s cute.

“So proud of yourself.”

“Hey, don’t say it like that. I’m proud of you too--you even showed up sober, would you believe!”

My mouth opens--and not just because I’m going to take another bite of food--and it stays open. I can’t believe it! He just called me out like that. Is he talking to me? REALLY? I look around behind me, too, to make sure I’m getting this correct. My eyes move back to him, and I just stare a moment. His light eyes in the window are bright and full of fire, full of both contempt and adoration.

I finish the rest of my bite slowly, draw out every single chew while I compose myself, before I swallow, clear my throat, and square my shoulders, “Well, Harold, this has been a lovely visit…”

“ _Stop it_ ,” he laughs, casual about it. “Just be careful, is all I’m saying.”

This is not the first time I’ve heard this, “You make it sound as though I’m out partying it up, which is quite unfair.”

“You never take the hint though, do you? But you’re a risk-taker, I suppose,” and he’s speaking to me like he’s been in therapy about this, like he’s trying to “accept” this about me.

“What can I say?”

“I don’t want to see anything happen to you... or... I just... there are consequences...” Consequences!?

“You mean, like... knocking up another girl?”

He fixes a heavy accidental eye-latch on me, "Something like that."

I am the one to look away, finding my eyes with deep concentration on my napkin. Having to tell the boys, on tour, about that situation was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, because it was a real moment of hesitation for all of us for different reasons. Maybe Harry most of all. The thing is, Harry and I, early on, bonded over a lot of things I still haven’t bonded over with anyone else. We both had a bit of a dad issue. We always wanted to be the total opposites. We wanted to be there for our kids, to do everything right and by the book. Naturally, Harry had high expectations of me, and admittedly, over the last year or two, I have openly disappointed Harry. As much as he is a bit Hollywood at times, he is also very down to Earth. He doesn’t get swept up in all of this. Maybe, sometimes, I do.

Maybe I even know it.

The conversation about the baby with Harry had been the worst. It’d ended abruptly, and he’d left. We’d been on the mend at that point, but after that conversation, we had really set ourselves back a good three or four months. Okay, so I suppose I was the one who set us back. We had needed a bit of a thaw before everything healed up a bit again. He’s very cagey about it, openly. I can’t pretend I don’t understand why. He knows a part of me, has a part of me, no one else does, even if he’s not supposed to. There's a familial sense that still pulsates between us. I’m not sure how that fits into my life anymore.

“Am I allowed to talk to you about that? Are we “there” enough to?” He’s half making fun of me, referencing one of my lasts texts to him from those weeks ago, and half being serious, testing the waters. “Or about the people you surround yourself with and that you trust new people too easily?”

“I’d prefer you not lecture me, love,” it just slips out under my breath, the entire sentence. He just broke through a wall. I’m a little exposed here.

He lets me think I’ve gotten away from it for a little bit as reward for being soft with him, but then I can see it all going on behind his eyes, building up.

“Sometimes you’re a dick.”

I’m raging. I try to hold my tongue about it but can’t keep at the grumble, “I’ve never needed anyone to look out for me, Harry. I’m not as reserved as you want me to be, but I never have been, have I? That's not me.”

“You say that, but, like… you’re out getting trashed and shit, and that puts you in a position to end up in a bad situation... again. I don't understand what you're doing or why.”

“You’re talking to me like I haven’t been in every meeting with management with you for the last five years.” He agrees. “It’s just a bit of fun, honest to God. Why do you care, anyway?”

It doesn’t come off at all as prickly as it probably should.

“I ask myself that all of the time lately. If you don’t care-- _about anything_ , apparently--why should I? If “just a bit of fun” is what you tell yourself, fine. _I knew you’d be like this_.”

“Whaaaat… _Harry_ ,” I manage, amazed at this line of conversation, and I’m rubbing my forehead and pushing my hair off my forehead. I hadn’t prepared for his tactic, because I hadn't known it existed.

It actually hurts a bit, honestly, that he’s upset at me this way, that he worries about me this way. I like to pretend none of us worry about each other on this level.

“Yeah, what?” He returns, then takes a sip of milk, annoyed that I’m confused by this questioning. “You’re here, Lou. Let’s talk about it, about everything. What’s it gonna hurt?” He gives me that look, his head tilted. Serious Harry, out and about to play with, to talk to. If he brings out Monster-Harry, I’m in trouble. I think it could be coming, but maybe I’m all right with that.

“Because so suddenly you think I want to talk to you about “everything?””

We’re snipping now.

“Who else are you going to talk to? Your mates are _shit_.”

“ _Harry_!” He doesn’t give the smallest iota of a fuck, I can see. He didn’t invite me here to bullshit or to pretend or gloss over anything at all.

“Sit down, talk to me,” he asks of me, his voice more gentle. “Don’t act like this isn’t exactly what you want. We've got time. I can offer my couch and my ear.” I’m so honored. I smirk at him. This time, he drops the armor. “I care.”

Pffft, and he gives me two furrowed eyebrows and a “don’t fuck this up” expression. _Shit._

“I wouldn’t know where to begin with you,” I offer him. “Things are so fucked.”

“Why don’t you crash here awhile? Plenty of time, that way, to talk. We've got, like..." He glances at me. "We've got a lot to talk about. It’s not going to work any other way." And he means us--us, in our entirety.

“You’re fucking out of your mind."

But he’s…

He’s… serious.

“Why am I out of my mind?”

“If anyone found out--”

“Stop, just _stop_ ,” he tells me, a hand up about it. “Are we or aren’t we friends?”

“Of course we are, but--”

“Are we or are we not CLOSE friends?”

“I’m not saying--”

“But you _are_ , and I’m so over it, Lou. You need to get over it, too.” My palms are sweaty. “No one knows I’m here but my family. We’ll keep it quiet. I won’t tell anyone you’re here, and you won’t, either. But if you want this to work--I want this to work--and if we want to be all right again, maybe we stop stepping around things and address them? I’ve a guest room. There’s a garden outside the window; it’s perfect for you.”

My mouth is wide open.

 _Absolutely not._ I couldn’t. No way, “All right.”

He laughs after about five seconds, surprised, “... _really_?”

We stare at each other a moment or five, but I have no idea if he’s as tense as I am.

“Yeah, I guess.”

His face lights up, just… like the sun, personified, and he paws at some loose strands of hair, “In that case,” since there’s plenty of time, now, to _slowly_ ease into all of the other heavy stuff, and also because he doesn’t want me to change my mind, “let’s have some brownies and discuss dinner options!” He leans over his knees, elbows on them, and produces his cell phone out of his pocket. “How do you feel about Greek?” Is he kidding? Am I in real life right now?

He’s done a total one-eighty, relieved so severely it’s _almost_ contagious.

I’m so confused as I slip down off the side of the sofa and onto a cushion, thoughtful about the plight of our friendship. Still, though, I agree, with merely a nod and an entire mouthful of “brownie” in order to keep myself from saying anything or making any sort of noise that is going to blow it for me. This is going to be good, I think, if I let it. We’ve had plenty of time to deal with the other lads over the last weeks. I guess now it’s time we deal with each other directly when there’s less pressure and not a business on the line. There are a lot of people around us that allow us “padding” towards each other, just like all of those times we went to everyone else but each other. That was never natural, though. The distance and grudge between us, truly, is not natural. Bad blood doesn’t feel good, here. I can’t just “get over it.” I haven’t been able to. I will never be able to.

I’ve cried about it. So, uh, I’ll take his olive branch before he stops offering them or cuts down his olive tree completely.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he replies to my silence, though I’ve barely blinked about it. “Italian?”

“Meh...”

“Chinese?

“Nah.”

“Indian?”

I push my hair back off my head completely, debating what I want. I’m starving for a good meal, actually, and I digress to his authority, “Ehhh…”

“What _are_ you feeling for? What could you eat?”

I glance over at the bare open-kitchen a few feet away on the platform, “What’ve you got here?”

I’ve spoken magical words. His phone is down on the coffee table, and he’s eying the kitchen too, “You saw the refrigerator.”

“So, nothing edible."

His laugh is so easy, so loose and charitable, even, it makes my insides quiver--the fuck is that? A wound pressed too soon, I suppose.

“I can go to the grocery.”

“No! No, I’m only kidding.”

“I’d rather,” he says. “It’ll be fun. It’ll be like old times.”

I sigh about that, not convinced and not sure I ever want to go back to “old times,” as they seem, indeed, like a lifetime ago.

He laughs again as he stands up, going to leave me to my thoughts before scouring the kitchen for potential meals, but he stops near me and grabs my hand and wrist. I look down, immediately, to where both of his huge spider hands have gone. I never realized, but I’ve been nervously rubbing my chest. I’ve been doing it for minutes, I think, scratching there like something’s at it--maybe something is! He’s stopped my hand, though, crushing it, to tell me to relax without having to actually tell me. He doesn’t even make eye-contact about it, just waits until I go to lower my hand before he releases and continues on towards the kitchen.

He asks, when I can see, in the window reflection, that he’s at a safe distance, his voice as salty and smug as humanly possible, “Can I offer you a beer?”

I spin around, arm on the back of the couch, and throw my head back and laugh at his literal Cheshire Cat grin, then throw myself down on the couch to get away from his stupid dopey smile as he produces a beer from the depths of his refrigerator, and I groan in outrage, “What a prick, fuck you!”

This is going to be a nightmare.  
  
“That is _roommate prick_ to you.”

“I’ve changed my mind," I tell him, both of my palms falling over my face and my closed eyes, physically grabbing at my fleshy bits with distress (and slight amusement).

“But you love me,” he says again.

I sigh at the ceiling, then look out the window, “A little bit.”


	5. Girls

I've been up at five in the morning every single day this week. Somehow, Harry's place has been my own home base when I've been otherwise traveling from place to place, visiting back with my family or friends elsewhere. His place in Hampstead sits at a good center location for me, at least that's my story. There's a bakery that provides my mornings with a buttery croissant, and though there's only a select few things in his cupboards, my Yorkshire tea hasn't yet run out. That's not Harry's doing, however, rather mine, because Harry hasn't even been staying here the last three days. He's flown off to the states to attend something or another with his family. I'm looking forward to having something to do, having to travel for work again. All of this time spent with my friends, my family, and my girlfriend is, I so secretly wish I could scream, KILLING me.

I am so bored.

Spending money is only fun for so long, and now I'm just back to worrying about things like my real estate portfolio and my mutual funds.

There is actually no reason to worry about either of these things, but looking towards the future, well, things can definitely change.

I need to roll back a little, chill a little on the spending on frivolous purchases. I've been doing a lot of those--like last week, I bought 30 albums off the Apple store.

I've listened to maybe one of the albums in its entirety...

Wealthy people usually stay wealthy because they exercise constraint. I need to work on that so I don't wind up back at, well, Toys'R'Us as a fifty-year old man.

It's five-fifteen, and my phone docking station/alarm clock combo is buzzing on the table behind my bed. I let it go on for a minute or two before I lift myself up and turn it off. The room is as its been every other morning I've stayed here. White. Everything is white. There's no other furniture but a chair in the corner, and all of the storage is tucked away in one of the nearly invisible closets, as it looks just like a normal wall. You wouldn't even know it was a wall if it weren't for the one random, pencil length stainless steel handle. At first, this minimalism made me feel oddly off-kilter.

I'm getting into it, though. It's like I have time to not get distracted by myself with nothing here to hold me back.

I can plan accordingly for the days and nights.

I just got back to Harry's last night after being with my family the last three or four days. I tossed and turned all of those nights before rising at five. This morning, though, I'm up after a night of straight-through sleep, which is a relieving change. But it's too quiet. It's quiet when I'm up, quiet when I'm in the hallway, quiet when I'm in the bathroom. Quiet in the kitchen. I'll admit, I'm a fan of having Harry cook or at least being here to pour me some cereal in happy silence. And that's what its been when we're both here--happy silence most of the time. I'd like to spend more time with him, but, uh, he's got a life far removed from me that I'm not allowed to touch or interfere with. I suppose that's good.

The door buzzes at seven, so I hop down the front steps and slide across the wood entry planks in the new socks I got for Christmas from one of my sisters.

I pull the door open without hesitation, knowing full well that the only reason this is working out so well and the only reason I'm getting some peace and quiet is because I maintain a cover of secrecy! I only come and go at night if I have to. It's sort of like this is my stop before I go anywhere else, to recover for a night or so. But the kitchen is looking rather empty, so I'm either going to have to actually get out and get to the grocery or I'll have to jump ship and find myself elsewhere.

One of Harry's friends. He's got a bag and sunglasses on, then pushes them up on his head, "Oh--hey?"

He's asking hey of me? Okay? I twist my eyebrows up a little, "Hi--the lad's not here."

"Yeah, I actually texted him--he said I could crash here awhile. He said he texted you last night."

Okay, so I'm not special. I'm just another straggler... but a welcoming one, I quickly decide, and step aside like Harry did for me last week and motion him in, "Sounds likely! My phone died last night, and I was too tired to grab my charger out my bag when I got here. Come on in. How do you feel about food?"

"I like it?"

"Great!" I exclaim, genuinely, with a big smile as I close the door behind me as quickly as I'd opened it. "So... how do you feel about _grocery shopping_?"

At around ten, I'm kicking around a football in Harry's enclosed little backyard, headphones on, trying to catch up on one of those albums with little luck--lots of filler trash on this album, which does not make for a great kick-around. It's a little emo, really, as a background for some carefree footy, but I'm committed to listening to these albums all of the way through now. I paid thirteen dollars for this album; I should at least put in thirteen minutes of open ears. But eventually I'm sort of into it, doing less tricks and kicking around and more just mindlessly kicking the ball against the brick wall of the back of the place--hey, it's brick. It's supposed to be pretty solid, no?

My phone starts blowing up, so I pull out the headphones from the jack, pulling my phone to my ear when I see that it's Harry, "'morning."

"'morning," his voice is full of fog and sleep, and I wonder why he's also up at five, just like I was. "Did you get my text from yesterday?"

"Yeah, he's all settled," I say as I lightly toe the ball up onto the brick and when it comes back, play keep-away with it from the ground, popping it back to the wall with the toe of my sneaker. "Everything's good here. How's the sun, how's the sand?"

"It's... _good_."

"You've the wisdom of the ages, Harold," I'm smiling, and it's so easy to do. I catch the ball on the top of the sneaker then lower it to the ground. "Everything else okay?"

"Yeah, just wanted to make sure you were comfortable having him there."

"It's your house."

"Yeah, but," is all he says. "Are you staying awhile or just stopping in?"

"I'll probably stay tonight, but the rest of the week is looking pretty busy leading up to the New Year, though I wouldn't mind just hiding out here instead."

"You know," he says after a good ten seconds where I can hear other voices talking in the background, "this bungalow is quite spacious should you want to hide here instead."

I laugh, "Yeah, wait until The Sun posts pictures of us trying to have a secret vacation in Florida."

"What I'm hearing you say is that you're depressed and miserable in London and that you could use some Vitamin D and definitely a tan."

"Punk," I accuse him and take a seat on one of the back steps, having discarded his football back where I'd found it. "Are you enjoying yourself, though?"

"Yeah."

"Good, happy to hear it! Your lads there?"  
  
"Yeah."

Hmm, "Anything else? I've been making sure to turn out the lights in rooms I'm not in; you'd be real proud. Don't worry about your electric bill."

"Wow, fantastic. I can put that off my mind now; it's been a real pressing concern."

"Ah, yes, is that why you're up at five in the morning? That reminds me, you forgot to leave your financial guy's card--can you text me his email? Was talking to my firm earlier, told them I was searching around for other advisors, and they wanted to know who I was looking at." We'd had a few good discussions about it, and Harry has been through three advisors before he'd finally found himself happy with this current guy. He was actually set up with him through the same connections as the people he's probably vacationing with at this very moment, as I stand here in the unexpected winter drizzle. I peer up at the sky with only a mild annoyance, having been enjoying it before I'd considered the alternative--sun! Bet Harry's been having an epic time there, with his mates. Which is why I changed the subject--hopefully successfully.

"I've got my soccer ball," somehow I've found myself saying into my phone, though it's more like: I've got me soccer ball, haven't I?

He laughs, then, after a brief hesitation, "Happy for you...?"

"I'm enjoying the solace."

"You should come here or come along on the yacht for a couple of days."

"What, just last minute hop on a flight, spend a day being ignored by you amongst your cool lads, and then get papped leaving? Appealing."

"Three days," is all he returns. "I see. Keep me posted on if you're staying there or if you leave. I guess... I'll see you."

"Enjoy."

The call is over, just like that. I never got a goodbye. He basically hung up on me! I laugh at the phone, then sigh, then turn it off and hop up, to head inside and grab a shower. Talking to him is a reality check, though I'm not quite sure just what the reality check requires of me. I'm not sure how to react, which I suppose is a better situation than having a reaction just to have a reaction. In truth, I'd love to stay here for the rest of the week, but that would only work if I were alone. Having other random people here is a little awkward for me and likely for Harry's mate, too.

I toss my phone onto the all-white comforters in my guest room, but my phone starts buzzing. I slide down, grasping it in my fingers, roll over on my back.

It's Harry--hmm, the financial advisor' s info, I hope? That could certainly kill some time for the next days, more unnecessary worrying about finding a new advisor.

But nope! It's the address to where he's staying, with two sun emojis and a smiley face.

_Thanks, bud, but no._

_Wouldn't it be great if you didn't care what people think?_

_Says you?_

_Touché._

_I've plans._

_Cancel them._

_What is with you, honestly?_

_I miss my friend._

_I have my friends and family to still catch up with. I'll see you next time you're in London._

_BUT? BUT, Louis Tomlinson, WHAT IF I am asking you to come spend time with me?_

_What if--WHAT IF--I say no. Again. Because I just said no 20 times..._

_BUT Louis Tomlinson, I want to spend time with you. I think you should come here._

I'm so overwhelmed. I genuinely do not understand what's happening here. Is he serious? He wants me to fly into the states, stay with him and his family and his good friends for a day or two, at most, then fly back for New Years Eve? My eyes lift up and around the room, then out the window. The truth is, if I had to weigh my options, I am slightly more inclined to take an impromptu trip to Florida, and wherever it is I need to go from there, than to waste the next four days here. I know if I go, though, my family will not be happy, as I wound up cutting into our family time when I was in Chicago, and I am still getting a little bit of shit about it from my mom. She never SAYS that she's annoyed, because she is just so happy to have me around with the rest of the family, but I can tell when something has bothered her--something of my doing, that is. If I leave again and cut short the trip I'm supposed to take back day after tomorrow, I may get an actual ear-full about it. Then again, I have spent the last week with them, and she had been all right with me coming back to London...

How fucking random would it be just to fly into the states to hang out with Harry for a couple of days?

_My family says you should come. Had to tell them you still hate me. Please alert me when we can be friends again._

UGH!

_Guilt tripping? This is what you're reduced to?!_

_You're the one who hates me._

He knows what he's doing. I know what he's doing.

And I let him do it.

_Stop. Can you go play with your boyfriends or something? Leave me alone. Stop harassing my phone._

_You're still not coming, so... no._

_1) I wasn't invited! 2) Maybe we aren't vacation-together friends anymore_

_3 -- All I do is sit in the sun all day. I'm bored of everyone else. Come un-bored me!_

_Go find a bookstore and pick up a dictionary? 4) I've already said no ten times._

_4a -- Twenty times, I thought. Come build sandcastles with me._

A sandcastle emoji. I hate him more than I last loved him.

I laugh again, because I'm so fed up with everything everywhere that has ever existed, especially his stupid love of emojis.  
  
_You're killin' me!_

_5 -- Think I'm into that lately :)_

_You would be._  
  
_I'll drink a Pina Colada in your honor. Every sip, I'll savor your distaste of my existence mixed with my tears._

More emojis! I'm done.

_Don't hold your breath. Or... do._

_6 -- I'd do it if you wanted me to._

_Stop being attentive._

_If that's what you want. After all, I'd do anything for you._

_Nooooooooooooooo Harollllllllllllllllllllllllllllld._

But there it is, isn't it? He knows how to eat away at me, as silly and juvenile as it is! He's made it clear he wants me there. I've made nothing clear in return. Fuck.

A glance at my phone out of pure curiosity leads to an available flight, and another check on the price a few minutes later leads to it being added to my cart...

It's cloudy outside, still drizzling. My hair is wet from the rain, and my body shivers as I sit up on my guest bed.

Quiet.

Sun, huh? What a concept. Harry? What a concept. Waves? Wind? I could feel good about this. I could feel real good about this, just a quick trip before the New Year--could maybe sort some things out to start it off right.

If anything, I can just lie in the sun awhile under a hat and sunglasses, and no one will ever be the wiser. And when I leave, hopefully I'll be a more at-ease me. That's the real part of this--sure, I'll go to visit Harry, but it's also a getaway for me. After all, I don't really have to socialize with anyone there. I don't really know much about his other friends and family. I can spend a day or two on my own, face-down on a towel in a sea of people, and let the sun baptize me back into the happier version of me that seemed to exist just a handful of weeks ago.

I grab my phone and text him back with only an angry emoji, and his reply almost comes immediately back at me, before I even put down my phone.

_Don't forget to pack a smile! ;)_

So, I do it. I run it by my mum, first, to make sure it's all right. She's not happy about it, but hearing that I'm not going off to be with a girl again, rather see Harry and his family for a day, visit with them a little, she's more open to it. I drive all of the way back to Doncaster to say goodbye to them with hugs and kisses, because I don't think I'll be back before the New Year. A lot is meant to happen around that time, and there is a lot pending in the following month or two--big changes for me, really--perhaps one of the reasons I am finding it so difficult to relax despite the copious amounts of time I now have to try.

Doncaster, all of the way back to London, onto a plane in a daze with a Xanax to accompany me, and over the Atlantic I go, sleeping soundly a good half-way through.

There's paparazzi at Miami International. I manage to disguise myself enough to not garner attention, catch the car Harry sent for me, and hop in. I sleep some more.

I'm not sure what exactly it is that we pull up to. If it's a resort, it's not a usual one. But it's late, so it's hard to make out all of the details, really, from the tinted car windows and from behind heavy eyes. Still, with all of that sleep, I feel I need more. I'm glad to be on land, now, though, and finally at my destination. I still can't really believe I did this. But I needed a change. And this is definitely a change. The idea of doing this a year ago? You couldn't have told me; I never would have believed it. But Harry was important to me then, and he's important to me now. I was mad then, and I'm not mad now. I'm not mad at him, or upset with him, or anything with him. Pleased, though, that he told me to just show up at the airport and he'd get it from there. He hadn't lied. I'm so used to going places and doing things and not having to worry about all of the little stuff, so he's pretty smooth to have taken that one less worry away in order to give me less excuses to not come enjoy a bit of a break.

Through gates we go, then down a long twisting drive. I roll my windows down and listen to the waves--a private resort, and I can see bungalows tucked away as we pass.

Eventually the car pulls up at a drive under a front overhang.

It's a private residence, I realize--not a resort at all.

Harry is sitting there waiting on the front steps with his sister, shirtless with a towel wrapped around his neck, already a bit tan, and they seem happy.

They're both up when I open the door and hop out, and everything just happens so fast--my bags, a tip, and the driver, and my chance to change my mind, is gone.

It's hot. I'm exhausted. This was a terrible mistake. I miss my tea. I miss the rain. I miss brooding.

_Lemons._

Lemon hugs.

I'm a lemonade maker, I feel like, squeezing him with my left arm and making sure the grip is tight with my right. He smells so good, and his skin is warm, and he's happy.

I'm happy too, suddenly.

A quick turnaround, I suppose, huh?

I give more hugs, and then I'm inside, following a lead while Harry trails behind me, content to be as quiet as I've been since I got out of the car.

There's everyone sitting around eating--his mum and stepdad see me come in--maybe they've been waiting--and they're up to give me a hug and kiss

I know everyone here, is the point, except maybe two people. Do I know them well? No. But at least I'm not a total stranger to all of them.

I am feeling quite excited about the prospects for me tomorrow--I don't have anything planned; it seems Harry does, but good for Harry! Me? I'm here to be invisible!

There's an arm draped around my shoulders out of nowhere, then two, from behind, just so simply, privately, and a warm fleshy nip behind my ear--my God, I...

Lemon-monster doesn't say a word, just releases me and gives my unusually neat, fluffy hair a rough-up with both hands.

He's so... carefree.

I stare at him, sort of, as he slips back down into a chair in order to get his drink, and then he's back up and turning towards me, "Come on, I'll show you we're we staying. It's outside. We're not here at the residence," so I follow him, silently, and wave at the group who is busy deep in their happy, lively conversation over a massive amount of crab. My mouth is watering about it, but honestly, I could just do with a sofa and some rest. I can fantasize about king crab tomorrow, but for now I'm back in the heat. It hits my nose before it gets to anything else, it seems like, but apparently I am hyper-sensitive about smells right now.

There are waves crashing, so I know this residence is real close to the water. I can smell that, too. I can feel it in my bones--happy to!

My eyes are latched onto Harry's bare upper back, following it without question since the moon wants to light it up to be my guide.

"There's where my family is staying," he points to a guest house off in the distance to the left, all of the lights on, "but I've got a little bungalow--was sharing it with the boys, but I kicked them out. Plenty of room elsewhere for them." And we walk until there's a small bungalow with a light on inside. It's got huge windows--it's like all windows, I see, once we're in, covered by long linen panels and protected from voyeurs. I suppose you can pull all of the curtains back and basically have a 360 degree view to an extent. It's so lovely, a dream. This property must be outrageously expensive, though I've barely seen any of it to make the assumption. Even just this little guest bungalow is so nice, so modern and up-to-date. I even notice that the door-hinges are quality build.

"Lovely," I breathe, amazed, as he flips one of the other lights on--it's still dim, though there are overhead lights he could turn on.

It feels good this way, like it'll be easier to wind down the day.

I put my bag down next to where he's put the other down.

"Are you okay to share the bed?" He asks, and it's not a big deal. We've shared a bed probably a hundred times. If not, there are two couches--probably pull outs.

I nod, simply, overwhelmed by the day, and the people around him, their generosity, and, of course, Harry himself, who stands before me as perfect as he could be, really.

"Are you hungry? Come back and have dinner."

"Yeah, absolutely," I agree, though I am exhausted and would rather go to sleep. I rub my hands together to try to energize myself, to show interest.

He can see that and smiles. He twists a bit, ankles crossed as he stands there in green swim trunks that reach mid-upper thigh, "No?"

"I should--it's fine, really."

"No, you're tired," he laughs, so softly, and I want to die for just that tiniest split second, and I refuse to acknowledge that I understand what that feeling comes from. "I'll bring something, and we'll sit out and eat." He pulls open a sliding glass door on the other side of the huge open room and flips on a light-switch, so I stand and follow him out onto a slab patio and stare straight ahead and out into the dark waves crashing. Beach-front. Amazing! Absolutely amazing. I can't believe I get to stay at places like this, with people like him, and people like them.

I am so lucky.

My hands are both holding my stomach, then my chest, just holding myself accountable for taking this in, gaping, "What a breathtaking view."

"Mmm," he agrees, not as totally committed or new to the view as I am but hardly dismissive of it, either, "wait until you see it at sunrise."

"I can't wait," I agree, the enthusiasm in my voice hard to mask--not that I would try to! Ah, this is too much. It's perfect. This is exactly where I need to be.

Invisible to the world, all but this little room, and that bed, and maybe a handful of other people.

There's a finger on my wrist, pulling my hand away from its place on my lower stomach, to get my attention, but it stays latched there a moment, as if to guide my attention back--I mean, successfully, but he turns before I get eye-contact, hand dropping away, and his back becomes the leader again, "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"It'll be rude for me to just stay here, not even come back and say goodnight to your parents at the least?"

"No, not at all. They already figure you're jetlagged. It's been a long day, long flight." He's back at the main door, but I am still standing in the open sliding glass doorway. He turns around, this time, both dimples unexpectedly on display and for no particular reason, so it, yeah, catches me a little off-guard. I search for the source of such enjoyment, but really it's just him and me and a room. He's looking at me--first just a glance, then wholly, and he cocks an eyebrow. It's like he wants to say something but he's not sure what. I'm not sure, either. I'm just happy to be here.

I think he understands that more than anyone else might be able to.

"I'll be back," he says again, after neither of us manages a word about anything else while we peered at each other from across the room for like twenty seconds...

I take my shoes off once he's gone, glad to be done with them, and go out and sit on the back patio with the light turned off, and let my eyes adjust to the dark.

The waves are soothing, and the way the moonlight hits the breakaways is so special.

The smell is magnificent and travels on the sea breeze, making its way up to the house, up to me. Everything feels overwhelming but so... renewing. I could stay here all night.

Maybe I will, maybe I'll just fall asleep right here. It's tempting.

Eventually Harry comes back, and this time he's got a shirt back on, and he's carrying containers. He puts them down on the kitchenette counter, that I can see from outside.

"Are you outside?"

"Yeah."

He comes out and sits next to me, pulling his knees up just like mine are, arms wrapping around them, and leans against them, and looks up at the stars, too.

It's been awhile.

It's been a _really_ long while.

We sit in our happy silence, taking in the night sky, the waves, and the quiet calm of it all. We've a lot of memories like this, Harry and I.

Thinking of this, now, more deeply, as the silence has compounded, my eyes finally come down and move right to him.

His eyes come up from where he's been digging his toes into the sand at the edge of the slab, hands at his sides, now, lounged casually.

He's all smiles, too, and the smallest of soft, knowing laughs--a chuckle, maybe.

I can't believe I'm here.

He can't, either, eyes sparkly about it in the brief light the moon gives them when he turns his head away, and my eyes are happy to follow, "What?"

He shakes his head about it, about the silent conversation, then brushes his hands together, lifting them from the patio, to rid of the sand, "I'm proud. Of you, I mean."

"Hmm?" I inquire, full of only grace--a rare occurrence anymore--and subtle, important emotions. "I'm proud of you, Harry. Always have been. Always will be. Love you," it comes out so blurry and slow, like time has slowed down, "no matter how much time passes or where we end up."

"I believe that more than I believe in most anything else," he admits, his voice un-cleared but not going to correct it.

Words like that cement us together, "I hope you know I'm still always here for you."

He pulls his knees back up, too, and quickly just hugs them, like he's hugging himself, puts his chin on his right knee-cap, and seems content to let the words sink in.

He doesn't say anything in return.

I'm grateful, because it means I've been able to get through to him, which allows my heart to be able to be content, too, and go back to being dedicated to the night itself.

After awhile, we go back inside, and we eat on the floor. We talk about stupid dumb stuff, and laugh a lot, and by the time I'm in bed, the lights out, I'm beat.

I fall asleep and sleep the best I've slept in a year--straight through. Awaking, I'm renewed. Fresh. I could pop right out of bed and be happy about it.

Coincidentally, Harry doesn't wake until well after I have, and with my face snuggled into a bright white pillow-case only a foot from his, I've surely noticed...

"Creep," his voice is froggy, and his lips are chapped, and I'm in total, private awe.

My fingertip kidnaps a tiny moment with the end of one of his locks of hair, twirling and tugging it and assessing why it's as comforting as a teddy-bear might be to a child.

His right eye peeks open on the pillow, and that's all. My fingertip quickly snatches away from its absentminded appraisal, and my face starts to hurt.

He breaks into the wryest of smiles, too, and buries his face totally into the pillow, then turns his head away, so the back of it is eventually to me, his arms buried under him.

His existence is simultaneously the worst and best thing that has happened to me. And I just... I just...

Why did I not know, either, until right this very moment, with the sliding glass door wide open from last night, and the bright light that illuminated those green eyes now rendered pointless and dull? So easy, how I don't have to think. How there is no fear, and no anxiety, and no worry about any one thing or any other thing when it's just the two of us--and it hits me; this is exactly how it used to be, all of the way at the beginning. This is exactly why we became so close, because this... works. I could probably throw myself over him right now and he wouldn't budge about it. I mean, I'm almost tempted to test the limits here! Leave it up to me to want to spoil total, pure sweetness.

My face is much closer than the rest of me, but soon enough I've called life-as-I've-known-it quits, and my face dives into the covers behind his back--and against it, too, because he's warm, and close, and we're alone, and my left arm just flies up and over him, lounging there. No one would ever know I was here--not even in this city, but in this bed, and paying my respects to soft cotton white t-shirts and dopey, deep laughs and battling arms since he tries to push my arm away, thinking I'm just teasing. But then he knows I'm not, and my arm is allowed to camp around him. No one would ever have to know I'm still on rent to Harry Styles when he wants me to visit.

I breathe in deeply--I mean, take everything I possibly can into my lungs--my nose burying as far as it can go behind his warm shirt and into the sheets, and I distantly hear him hum about the affection, but really all I'm good for is admiring powdery lemons and nudging a socked toe against a heel, then under it. I think my hand has collected miles of his t-shirt material, bunched between each of my fingers, and it's a collection I'm intent on not letting go of for awhile.

The good news is: he likes my collection enough to let me have it.

"I'm going to die here."

He just laughs about it, loudly, and starts to turn a bit, and I moan in sadness until I realize his reposition traps me, thus cementing us into it. I can make do, I suppose...

"Are you _snuggling_ with me?" He asks me, genuinely, turning his face to the left. He's so amused by it, like he can't even believe, and I am privy to his pearly teeth from a strangely raw, intimate angle.

"I'd never!"

He's laughter all over again, and his hand is now over his eyes, his wrist facing upward and his long fingers are just relaxed. All of his rings are missing.

I only watch, happy to, and offer little else as explanation as silence returns.

I hug him tight, for the little brother he is to me, in honor of the teddy-bear he once was to me, and bury my face wholly in his shoulder, to make a point, "Help!"

He elbows me about it in the softest way he can, but there's nothing but happiness in him this morning--no Monster-Harry at all, because all he does is hug my arm in response. Eventually I ease up a little and release him, once I have let go of all of my Harry anxieties and replaced them with at-ease content for the morning. He pulls away once my arm has come up and away, but he doesn't go too far. It's me who finally sits up, and it's a real thing: I'm really feeling so rested and alert. The bungalow is bright, it's sunny out, and a whole day is now awaiting me that I had no plans for yesterday. I'm right up out of bed after one last glance at him--he's still on his back, but his eyes are closed and his arm is over his face. He's still tired, still going to stay in bed awhile.

I walk over to the open sliding glass door, and my mouth just falls open. Holy shit, the view. I don' t even need to think about having to be disguised in a sea of people.

This is a private beach, no one around at all. Perfect!

"If you're hungry," Harry's murmuring, half asleep, from bed, "there's a chef up at the main residence who will make you whatever you want. I'll be up soon."

"I think I'm gonna go for a walk first," I inform him, finally forcibly removing my eyes from the view, just leaning against the door-frame, totally relaxed.

"I'll come."

"You're half asleep."

"I'll come," he says again, meaning he really wants to, and props himself up on his elbow. His hair is a mess, and I smile about it. He does, too, as he pats it down.

I'm out on the patio sometime later when he finally emerges, hair pulled back and face washed, and we're off over the dunes, then out along the water's edge.

In the distance, there's a call, and Harry turns right away, and waves to whoever is calling at them from the elevated deck on the back of the main residence.

"Unexpected," he slowly says, and I realize he seems disconcerted. I'm too busy floating on rare bliss that I've basically forgotten anything else in the world exists...

"What?" I ask, doubling-back to where he's stopped, about ten feet away. "You all right?"

"Are you really okay to stay at the bungalow yourself?"

Huh? I mean, "Yeah, sure, of course. Why?"

He motions with his thumb to the left, to motion to the yelling, and I focus my eyes over, squinting--I see his sister, his best friend, and... oh.

His girlfriend.

"Ah," I laugh, too, realizing. And sure, my buzz comes down a slight bit, but didn't I basically come here so I could just be alone most of the time anyway? "You stay in the bungalow. I'm sure I can find--"

"There's plenty of room in the other guest house and at the main residence," he quickly interrupts. "We'll stay there."

"If that's what you want, but I don't mind staying elsewhere. All of your stuff is already in the bungalow," I decide, thinking about it. "Yeah, I'll stay elsewhere."

"Lou," he says, when I've walked off, back for the bungalow, but I don't turn around--I don't know, I just gotta get out of here. Back to Earth, really. Didn't know I'd been elsewhere... "Lou!"

What? I turn around and look back at him only when I'm at a safe distance and I've taken a deep breath. I manage a perfect, carefree smile--I mean, I hope, "Yep?"

His hands come out at his sides. It's like he's not sure which thing he wants to discuss--the walk, or the change in barometer between us, or the room situation. Me either!

"You stay," he says, and his expression clouds over when all I do is blink in return. I'm not going to argue with him. "We can figure it out later. Come on, walk."

"I mean, your girlfriend just got here," I say, instead. "Go see her."

"I can see her when we get back."

"You don't have to prove anything. Definitely go see her. We can walk later, no big deal."

"... are you sure?"

No, I'm not mother fucking _sure_ , "Yep!"

" _Sure_ -sure?" He searches my face. He's in an awkward situation; I'm not sure why that is, suddenly. I'm mildly annoyed that my carefree buzz has dissipated...

"Yep!" I motion him to walk with me, back to the bungalow, and he trots closer, until he's caught up, and we walk back in mostly silence.

I can barely believe it.

When we're back at the bungalow and I grab for my bag, he's staring at me, his hands awkwardly held together in front of him, trying to find something to say, so I help, "Can you stop being weird?" I laugh, and it's genuine. But he doesn't laugh back. He doesn't even crack a smile about it, preoccupied with whatever he's got going on in his head. After all, while I've been blissed out to be here, he's had his own mind on things. I really have no gauge for what his state of mind is, but I know the furrowed eyebrows and wrinkled forehead well-enough by now to know he's distressed. He's not going to tell me just what exactly is going on inside, but I want him to know not to worry about it. "Please?"

"Well, I don't want you to be mad."

I look at him, then, putting my bag on the foot of the messy covers on the queen-sized pillow-puff of a bed.

The moment is quiet, and soft, and we're still alone. Still, no one knows this moment is existing, barely even me, and I assure, "I promise, I'm not put-off. I'm really happy to be here. I don't care where I'm staying. But I'd prefer you stay here. This is your vacation. I am just here to be invisible, anyway," and he's heard me say this before, so it's not new to him, either. "Okay?"

"Okay." But it's not okay. "Come on, we'll head up and get breakfast, and find you a room."

I agree, and eventually we're out the front door of the bungalow and walking up the private sandy path to the main residence. The place is even more insane than it seemed last night. It's large but not over-the-top huge. The landscaping is mind-blowing, and while Harry is running up the back steps to get up onto the deck, with my bag, I've taken to exploring all of the plants and gardens. Also, I didn't want to be awkwardly standing there, because his girlfriend came out with his sister from the kitchen area and onto the deck as we'd gotten closer. I take genuine great interest in the plants and flowers, but I'm starving so I can't wait to get something to eat. I look over, too, just barely, to see if I'm safe, if I can go up, but I'm not safe yet.

I'm in danger!

They're having a kiss and a hug, and I squeeze a flower a little too hard and it pops off the stem, "Oh dear," I say aloud, just to it and to myself.

"Lou, come get breakfast," his sister calls out to me, and I realize, in total panic, that she's been watching me.

I go up the stairs. Harry's waiting, and he introduces his girlfriend to me. They've been quietly "on" for some time, but he never brought her around tour.

I guess, now he's got the time...

She's very much his type, which, it does kind of make me laugh, because Harry five years ago didn't quite have this type. But he's Hollywood-enough, I remind myself, "It's lovely to meet you."

Gemma's holding open the door, and I split inside and into the open living room, the huge vaulted, sky-lit ceiling keeping it nearly just as bright as outside.

I say good-morning to everyone and am immediately absorbed into conversation, because these people--all of these people--are as lovely, warm, and genuine as Harry.

I miss my family. Why did I leave them for this?

Why did I leave them to be a twelfth wheel?

Sure, the sun! The sand! The warmth! True, true. And I intend to get back to that mindset, but for now, for breakfast, I want to bury whatever feelings just got burned.

After breakfast, Anne helps me find a room. It's perfect. It's got a nice bed, and it's quiet, off of a weird wing of the house, a bit at a distance from other rooms.

We chit-chat awhile in front of the window I've opened in the room--about my family, my mom, what I've been up to. It's more in-depth than we've had in awhile.

Then I'm alone again, in Florida, in a clinical-setting-like room. Alone.

I laugh and plop down on the bed and rub my face, totally amazed at how the day has already changed so much, and my thoughts, too.

I hit the beach with a towel, sunglasses, and headphones, and fall asleep on my back, then sufficiently on my stomach.

I'm burned by the time I'm back at the house, having made this kind of mistake and regretted it before.

"You're a lobster!" Anne says when she sees me, up on the deck. "Where've you been, love?"

"Out there somewhere," I motion to the private beach, and I can see from here that the others are over on the more public side.

"We were looking for you," she says, so I understand.

I do. I do. I had wanted to be alone, anyway, "Yeah, no, it's fine. Hungry, though."

"Me too," she smiles, thoughtful, and looks at the two wood French doors, then motions me there with her head, as if we'll go have a look, and we do.

We eat some chips and salsa, and we talk some more. I tell her I think I'm going to leave, and she says maybe that's a bad idea. I tell her I know, but I can't stay.

She asks why, and I can't answer her.

But that answers her enough.

When Harry gets back at around five, he's happy to see me and calls me a lobster, too, and smooshes my red face with both of his hands, but midway through our conversation, when I think everything is fine and he'll be okay with it, I casually drop the, "So, listen, I think I'm going to leave and pop into Chicago for a bit."

He blinks.

"Wait, what?"

Lying out on the beach, letting the sun sizzle and fry up my skin, was enough for one day--it's just how I thought it would be. Why did I even come, honestly?

I'm not going to relax, being here. I am incapable of relaxing!

"No, I want you to stay," he quickly says, as I go to elaborate on the decision, and he can probably see I've already made up my mind. I'm already showered and changed. "Please?"

My bag is packed, he sees, and over by the front door, and his eyes widen a bit, and he groans and rubs his face with both hands.

I mean, standing here, it's a little awkward, but, "I already said thanks and bye to everyone. I wanted to wait 'til you got back, though!" I'm trying to keep upbeat.

"Why--why are you leaving?" He asks instead, and he's frustrated.

I feel my own face grimace, "You don't have to be mad at me about it. I came, I stayed."

"You flew all of the way here just to sleep, see me for ten minutes, and then leave? That's what you're going with?"

"I'm sorry, uh, but... I'm not the one who changed the plans, here. Can you spare me the outrage, please? I'd rather you spend the time with your friends and family. It's not a big deal."

His arms fall, and he stares at me.

What? I know I'm right. He knows I'm right. A wrench got thrown into whatever good vibrations we were feeling. My vibes are gone. He doesn't give a fuck, though.

Why would he?

This was his planned vacation, after all, that I just sort of dropped down into. I don't want to make him feel guilty about not having the time to spend with me. For God's sake, his girlfriend is here! His family! His best friends, too. The alternative is I literally stay here and not interact with him much--and yeah, his family is lovely, but it is what it is. There are people I can go see, here, which, yeah, maybe if it gets back to my mother, I'll get a verbal slap-down over the phone from across an ocean, but the only other option is falling victim, here, to feelings I've been trying to pretend don't exist anymore. Sometimes, with Harry, it's like I'm way more sensitive emotionally than I am with anyone else. We just had something of a huge break-through. I don't want to ruin that good work by staying here and feeling bitter about being ignored. I'd rather treasure the little time I got with him, then fly out and catch up with my own persons.

"Can you at least stay tonight? I've been trying to get in as much time with them this morning and afternoon so we can catch up after dinner." He motions between us.

I inch back towards the door.

He throws his hands out at me, and now he's upset, openly.

"Yeah, well, I already bought a ticket," I say, and lift my eyebrows as I turn and lift my bag from the floor. "I'll see you..."

"You... you're actually going to leave? You just fucking got here." His hands both go to his head and he squeezes his manbun... thingy. "I--I hate you sometimes."

I can't leave fast enough, honestly, "Great, thank-you so much for that."

"You're mad at me for something I didn't even do, and you can never, EVER just fucking _talk_ about anything with me like you can everyone else anymore; just _talk_ to me, Lou, instead of leaving."

"I'm not mad at you!" I assure--and really, I'm not! At all! "Calm down, lad, yeah? I'll literally see you in like three days."

"That's not the point, though."

"You're mad because I'm not mad...?"

"I'm mad you're pretending you're not mad. I'm mad because you're leaving for no good reason." My reason is plenty good--and I wish I could say that, but I refuse to acknowledge it.

My throat doesn't, though, because it's all knotted up and hard out of nowhere.  
  
"And if you've got a good reason, maybe you should tell me," his voice breaks, coming down to nearly a whisper at the last of his words. His eyes are on the floor.

Oh my _God_.

I stare at him.

There is total silence for at least thirty seconds.

If there are things I could say, I don't remember how.

"Bye," I say, again, finally, voice shaky, because there's a wall built up too high and too thick to be penetrated, and he just came at it unexpectedly.

He shakes his head, and it goes from bad to worse--all of the way past Monster-Harry and right to Robot-Harry, "Fine. Great to see ya, Lou. Loved all the catching up. A real pleasure. I'll see you when I see you."

"Okay."

I open the door and walk out, then down the front steps, then into the drive, then down the long-drive... it's like a mile to the street, honestly. I never called for a car, so somehow, in some world, yesterday I was enjoying my impending meltdown in the cold London drizzle, and today I'm sweating bullets in the Florida sun as I walk down a random road, out of the gates of a private residence, until I get to a petrol station. I literally can't believe I just walked out of there like that. What the fuck is happening to me? Where the FUCK am I? FUCK! I toss my bag down after I've called to have a taxi come pick me up, and then I sit down next to it on the hot pavement and wrap my arms over my head. I've got no one to call about it. No one would know or understand, because no one even knows this is a thing.

I barely know.

I flew, same-day, straight over the Atlantic for this guy, and then he just...

All right, so maybe I _am_ mad.

I never should have come.

I should never listen to my feelings where he is concerned ever again. I should have learned by now. I should have known, by now, as _I do not react normally to him_.

"Should have, would have, could have," I say as I bang my head on my knees, my hands locked around the back of my neck. "Fuck _me_."

Does he know, though?

I don't know if he knows.

But if he does know, does it matter?

I ruined everything.

"Love?"

My head pops up, and I only know it's being directed at me because it's a familiar, non-American accent.

A car has just pulled up; it's Anne.

"You have to come back," she says, matter-of-fact. "He's losing his shit."

"I'm not going back there," I tell her, irrationally angry, and my palms are over my eyes, pressing into them, because they're welled with emotion.

She sits down next to me--and if I were in anything of my normal state, I wouldn't have ever let her dare hit the dirty ground--but here I am, a jerk crying in fucking Florida!

At a petrol-station.

On the ground.

She has a hand on my back, and she rubs for a few seconds, then cups the back of my neck with her hand, and repeats, "You can't leave. He's too upset. You're too upset."

I don't know what's up and what's down right now. She's probably right; walking away this way is a really bad idea. There's so much tension between Harry and I. It seems like it'll never be fixed. This morning, it was five years ago, but...

I know she's right. I know on my walk here, I became ten times as angry as I was when I left, after mulling things over. For him, it's probably the same.

"How did it get this way?" She asks me, as if she hasn't asked her son, as if she hasn't heard his side of every story ever. But still, she asks. She thinks there's more.

"Girls," I say, broken as I feel, and laugh through my irrational, frustrated tears, and she laughs, too.

It's not a lie.


	6. Slipper Love

The last week has been a blur. It's not by accident that it has been that way. It was designed that way, and only by me. I've found some good old friends to burn off steam with, enabled to block out what I don't want to think about. At first I spent my time drinking anything I could get my hands on with any person who happened to be within five feet. But after a couple of nights of that, the calls started: my mum, my ex-girlfriend who I haven't talked to in awhile, and even an old management person. It was then that I realized that I wasn't going to be able to slosh it all away publicly, so I went underground. I literally went undernground at some point--I have never, ever done what I've done in the last days. I'm not even sure if I can remember everything that's happened--actually, factually, that is incorrect; I know there's a lot I don't remember, hope to never remember, and hope never surfaces, as I am also one-hundred percent sure that I didn't go out of my way to make sure the scruples of the people around me were up-to-par.

My own scruples went on hiatus, I think.

My room is blurry when I wake. I'm back at my place. I know how I got here, because, in a true moment of eye-opening shame, my little sister was the one to beat me upside both sides of my head after yelling about having been trying to find me. She had words with me--I just remember her eyes, how mad she was, then how concerned she was, and then how hurt. As big brother, I never should have put her in that position, nor should I have put myself in it. But I'd snapped. It's true. I finally just fucking--something just... something broke.

I'm broken. It's fucking _great_.

I think I can admit that to myself right now, slumped over in bed with my shoulders slumped and a bruise on my shoulder from my sister punching me there. It hurts like a bitch, and I rub from over the three sweaters I have on, because I'm fucking freezing. And I'm also in withdrawal. It's bad, it's real fucking bad, how easily I got back here and how easily I got here at all. Can't believe this, honestly. I'm so fucked. Who knows where the fuck my friends are at this point--one guy I've been closer with was the only guy trying to talk me out of this bullshit. They can participate recreationally, they all said. Me? I go hard.

The room is horrible. It's unfamiliar. It's terrible. _Everything is bad_. Everything is terrible. I'm in huge trouble. HUGE. Listen to me, I could be Donald fucking Trump. _Fuck_.

It's New Year's morning, and there are thirty missed messages on my phone, probably thirty people in my house, here, just outside London. It's surely a mess from the party that was successfully thrown. Liam had shown up at some point, actually taken me up on my offer to come visit. That's the thing with Liam: we're actually close friends. Niall's got his own crew, God knows that other motherfucker has his own entire world, but me and Liam? We are what we seem. He is my bro, my bud, my pal. It was him who got my sister to punch me to snap out of it before he got here. And then once he did get here, well...

I scroll through my messages, looking openly and finding nothing from the only person I want to hear from. I don't have pretend that's not the case, not when I'm alone.

Of fucking course not, no message. Why would he message me? We are at war. I'm at war with him. I'm at war with myself; I'm at war. But I can clean-up well, and I need to get it together for this morning's "friends brunch" that's been planned for over a month. If I turn up there looking as strung-out as I feel and probably currently look, I'll be questioned about it.

My poor girlfriend, privy to all of this.

She has no fucking clue.

No one has any fucking clue.

I don't want to respond to anyone. I feel close to death as I shiver beneath my covers, falling back again and pulling them over me. I wish I could hide away here forever, honest to God. But I can't. I know I can't, and this--meaning today--is a losing battle. I feel like I've been in bed for days. Maybe I have, maybe I just fell asleep days ago and all of this has been a bad dream. Can I claim temporary insanity? Stress-induced insanity? Is that a thing? I don't know, but I battle with the covers awhile more before finding my feet on the floor, sitting on the edge of my bed and all of its stripy, wonderful linens. This bed and I could be in a relationship, I guess; it knows me better than anyone--the bed and my slippers, which I slip on as I stand.

"How pathetic," I murmur aloud in response to my thoughts and also to the sight of myself in my wardrobe mirror as I take a glance. Luckily, I'd braced myself...

My phone "bings" so I pull it out of my pocket and respond to a few texts.

Yeah, yeah, happy fucking New Year, everyone. Happy FUCKIN' New Year!

A knock comes on my door, but no one waits for a response. My sister is standing there, albeit yes, quite suddenly, and I'm startled.

"You look like death."

I feel like it, but I realize I've not uttered a word to her in response, blinking lazily at her presence. How'd she get here?

"You should get a shower." She rubs at her face as if to signify mine, a suggestion that I need a shave. Yeah, well, I already know that, don't I? I do. "Hello? Are you hearing me? Can you please snap out of it? I'm actually really worried, and I've almost called mum."

Oh, wow. Okay. Just what I wanted to hear, cool. I'm embarrassed, I'm ashamed. I give her a few waves of my right hand to go, that she doesn't need to say anything else. For whatever reason, she actually listens. If my mum knew what I've been up to, and what my own sister has seen me up to, I'd... I'm not even sure what would happen, but it'd be nasty. My mum has been down this road with me before, the careful dance when there's more than suspicion that I'm dabbling. I got clean. It was difficult to do, because drugs are so easy to get. They are everywhere. I could cough and find a bag of coke in my hand--okay, so maybe that is slightly exaggerating, but the sentiment remains.

It's not just drugs, though. It's the alcohol. I've been trashed for days. I don't even know how many days its been. Granted, it's been a blast.

But it was all leading up to this, just getting me through to the new year, to collapsed plans, to ruined friendships. 2016 is going to break me if I let it.

Or, to be more succinct, 2016 will allow me to further break myself if I let it. Dunno what I'm doing--can't believe I've fallen this far. I'm supposed to be level-headed when it comes down to it. Hell, I am. But Jesus fuck, I need to watch myself. I allowed myself to get this way instead of dealing with things the harder way, instead of facing awkward conversations with defensive attacks and angry denials. I remember it all too clearly--and this is not to say that my current state is about one particular person, because I've been having a great time with my mates. But did having a blow-out with Harry on a small private tarmac with a private jet waiting help any situations? No. No, it really didn't.

It's really fucking a nightmare this time. Things were _said_. I'm still purposely trying to pretend I don't remember what was said, exactly.

I do, though.

It's all coming out, groans and sighs, and just barely because of my aching bones as I stretch, left alone to contemplate the day. The truth is, I am not sure anyone else has noticed how crazy its been lately--I mean, as ridiculous as it is, without management around, I almost can't gauge what the fuck the magnitude is of what I do and when. I've been trying to stay out of bars, though, or really out of anywhere too public. Sometimes it is what it truly is, and I'm never one to sit back and hide. I've got a nasty sweet-spot for alcohol and the abrupt mix of salty tears with it--or, sure, sometimes other substances.

Lately I've barely had an appetite alcohol hasn't been able to sate.

I never want to eat.

I've been here before, in this exact mindset. I got sober, though. I had to. I had no one to partner up with to get to this point this time around.

No one is going to hold me accountable here. I don't have a Liam who is going to give me a double-take and a silent, "Bro, please... be careful." I mean, sure, he did last night, but that was because he happened to be in the right place at the right time. I can't count on that going forward. I shouldn't have to, and I shouldn't have anyone else needing to watch out for me that way. I am a grown man--a privileged man? So in the mirror, rubbing over my stubble, I ask myself what the fuck I'm doing, leaning in real close to get a glimpse at this character, this guy in the mirror I so dislike sometimes. To think that an argument could spur this--but truthfully, I've not had an argument like that in years.

Harry and I have fallen out. It is as simple as. I'm not sure what to do about it.

Every step towards the bathroom is heavy. The shower feels like an orgasm. I let the water get too hot, and when I open my eyes, the bathroom is steaming. There's a good chance I dozed off, standing upright, but it feels so good when I'm out. I've scrubbed down, shaved. All my sins, washed away. If only it were that simple, huh? I think I can manage to get through the day, make it through hearing the resolutions of all others while I do all I can to not admit that I find it hard to believe in such sentiments. Today is a day for reflecting. Unfortunately, there is a lot of other bullshit to reflect on instead of concentrating on all of the marvels of the last year.

The kitchen is full of friends. I greet each person differently before silently standing, waiting for my tea water to warm up. I listen to the happy chit-chat behind me, numb. Only when my water boils and I've poured it in my cup, over my teabag, do I walk out and find an empty room, not much in the mood for the warmth of happy talk. There is this room that sits two away from the kitchen--it's small, and originally I designated it as an office. It has bookshelves--there are awards in there. A few books. Lots of pictures, I see, as I wind up face-to-face with a picture of Harry and Zayn in this very house.

You've got to be kidding me. Fucking universe!

I grab the frame and place it face-down. I've never done so before in my life. But it's too much, too early, and I'm too fucking hung over.

I drag the chair to look out the giant windows and plop down, sip my tea, and contemplate the day.

My phone is buzzing and binging again.

I open the link that's been sent to me, gape at it for a few moments, then toss my phone onto the lush rug to my left, despaired.

I can't fucking win.

I don't know what's going on anymore.

"Lou? There you are!"

"Am I?"

My sister leans against the door-frame, arms crossing over her chest as she looks out the window, too, "What're you watching?"

"Everything."

She peers back out onto the scene outside, then side-eyes me entirely, "There's... nothing happening."

"That doesn't mean there's nothing worth watching."

"Ah, yes, my philosopher brother," she says, and it's not meanly--or even sarcastically. She seems cautious, though. I get it. "Want to talk?"

"No."

"I just sent you--"

"Yeah, yeah, I saw it. I saw it." So, I interrupt. I don't want to hear this. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you send that--why did you send THAT, of all things--to me? Today? Now?"

She's so confused, "I mean, it's all over the news. We thought you might get a laugh about it. Liam did."

"Yeah, that's what you thought, Lot, or the others?" I glance tiredly at her. Does she know? Does anyone?

CAN someone please understand? If I am forced to spell it out for anyone, I wouldn't even know how to spell what this is! Or what it means. I couldn't. I wouldn't.

I can't.

She doesn't get it, though. I see that easily. Why would she? I am an apt actor, an apt master of illusion. A silent, suffering, currently very _confused_ fucker.

She lifts both eyebrows at my tone, unsure how to take it. I don't give her any clues, either, about it, before she says, "You're sour on him?"

"Why would you think that? 'course not." I lightly force a tight, close-lipped smile, then look back out the window, so intense my stomach is in knots. "I don't really care about what he does on holiday. I'm sure it's not like he's thinking about what I'm doing."

"Well, that's because you're not Harry Styles, are you?" She smiles. To her, Harry is Harry. To everyone else, Harry is Harry. To me? Great question. What awaits is a terrible answer.

"Do you like being my sister?" I drip at her, seeing that she has highly amused herself, and she hasn't picked up on my real mood. "I hate it." I put my tea down on the floor between my feet, my hands coming to my knees as she comes in the room, abruptly, at the equally sudden words. I'm going to scream. I can't believe I am at my house, on the morning of the New Year, and my own sister has just sent me a link to Harry Styles' whereabouts! Why can't she come in and ask about how I'm feeling? Or chat about other things? Or hey, even a hug and a declaration of what a happy, great year 2016 is going to be! Can I blame her? No. She's happy, she's young--listen to me, talking like I am fucking eighty years old. Right now, I feel it.

"I hate that you're talking to me about him. Today. Or any day. I don't want to talk about him. I don't want to think about him. I don't want to... I don't!"

Her eyes are huge, and she goes for the jugular of the obvious elephant stuffed in the tiny room, "I didn't mean anything by it, did I?! Something happened?"

Am I suffocating? Yes! Yes, I might be! I grab by chest, my throat, my face, trying to find the words, overwhelmed. Can I start the morning over?

"Nothing happened. I am just... so... fucking... tired." I bang my head back on the chair three times, and I do it for the actual pain, with force.

I know exactly what she means when she levels with me and evens her tone, leaning slightly forward and leading my understanding with, "I'm your sister." _Talk to her._

"Are you now?"

This time, she laughs at the way I word it, but she's no longer as cautious. She takes a seat on the ottoman to my right, "... well?"

All I do is look at her, then back out the window. I never go to reply, because I've nothing to say anymore. I've lost my urge to speak where he is concerned.

"Brunch is in an hour," I say, instead, after about a minute, looking to her without apology. She understands I won't speak to her about this. "Go get ready, don't be late."

Because she is who she is, and I am who I am, she goes without pressing. It's not territory she would understand, anyway. I barely understand it. I think maybe Liam seems to be the only person I could actually discuss Harry with this way. I can't discuss it with my mates--it's long-since been policy that I don't discuss my band-mates with them. But with Liam, it's sort of a given. I remember last night, him showing me his phone. Harry had texted him _Happy New Year,_ though where he had been it had only been eight inn the evening or so. Over the course of the night and leading up into the early AM hours here in London, I'd watched from various angles as Liam and Harry texted. Even Niall had stopped by at some point, and then it was the three of us--and Harry, somewhere on the Atlantic, it would seem, by the link I was just accosted with by my sister. I can't speak badly on him to her or to anyone else except maybe Liam. And Zayn. But I haven't spoken to him at all lately.

My phone is ringing.

My eyes shift over to the right, to where the phone resides on the carpet.

By the ringtone, I hear that it's Harry.

I can't pretend I'm not surprised.

There's no way I'm picking up, though. I'm too angry, too bitter. I know he surely can't be calling to apologize. He'd clearly meant every fucking word he'd said.

I sip my tea and watch the drama unfold as it goes to voicemail. My phone lets me know with a vibration that a voicemail has been left.

But then he calls again.

I wonder if something's wrong--like if someone's dead, unexpectedly, that he would call not just once, but twice? I'm tempted to pick up this time.

I inch forward over the side of the chair, squinting at the phone, trying to decipher what this could all mean, but my detective work is interrupted.

"'morning, mate! Happy New Year, starting it off right by breaking your phone again?"

I look over into the doorway to see Liam standing there, face puffy from lack of sleep, but he seems happy, showered, and ready for the day, "Happy New Year--yeah, yeah."

He squints, then lifts his own phone up and wiggles it from side to side, "Are you going to answer?"

"Hmm?"

"The phone, are you going to answer it?"

It's ringing again.

It's Harry.

Liam knows it's Harry, because he knows the ringtone, too.

"I, uh, well, Liam," I try again, take a quick sip of tea, then put it back down between my feet again, "no."

"Hmm," is all he says. "He just called me too, actually. Making the rounds, I guess. He sounded really happy, which was nice."

"Splendid."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on, bro, or not?" His inquiry is so soft, so quiet. It's like he doesn't want to ask but has to. He's asking for the record.

I mean, I need to tell someone, so I try to compose myself but only manage, "We had it out." So he sits down on the ottoman abandoned by my sister. He doesn't seem surprised, but he's not sure where to begin, either. I think he's waiting on me--scratch that; I know he's waiting on me. This is awkward territory for him as much as anyone, but again, he probably knows he is the only one who will even get this story out of me. He knows our history, Harry's and mine; we've all been forced so closely together that it would have been hard to ignore these things happening. "We were actually getting on pretty well. I was staying at his flat in Hampstead, did you know?"

"What? When?" His eyebrows are lifted and his head is tilted up. He is a literal warm puppy dog, this Liam.

"Last week. I crashed there every couple of nights in between traveling between the mates and my family. He was there for the first week or so, so I'd just randomly walk in and we'd go have lunch, or sit and binge-watch Mozart in the Jungle, which, _by the way_ , is this series on Amazon Prime--highly recommend it--right, sorry," he steers me back in the direction of the story, not letting me get out of it that easily, as if changing the subjects in such a way would have worked anyway. "Things on the surface seemed all right. He left for his vacation with his adoptive family," which is how we refer to them, just between the two of us, and never in a kind way, honestly, "so everything was cool. He texted me that I should come--"

"To Miami?!"

"Yeah, to Miami. So, I went."

"What? Bro, that's massive! How did you keep that quiet?"

"It wasn't hard, as I was only there for a night and a day. Things got real fucked up real fast, ended with us screaming at each other on a tarmac."

"I don't understand what you could even scream at each other about? I thought everything was all right. Miami?!" He's still not over it, trying to get this all figured out.

"I dunno."

"Sorry," he realizes, pacing himself, and offers what he can. "Let me help."

"Yeah, but you can't help. Nothing you can do or say will help. And I don't want to put you in a position to be between Harry and I."

"I already am, though, aren't I, mate? I got a text telling me to tell you Happy New Year when I told him I was here."

"You really don't need to tell me stuff like that. That's dumb, using you as a proxy. Don't let him do that anymore. He's done it before."

Liam is really perplexed. Stressed out. He knows he's missing something.

We lapse into silence for awhile.

"What is it, then?"

"What do you mean?"

"What's behind... all of it? What is there to scream at each other about that hasn't already been screamed about by any of us?"

That's exactly it: this wasn't to their knowledge. This wasn't for group consumption. This is basically a secret--and because of that, it means it's something I'd never wanted anyone to know about. Is it my place to say the truth to Liam, either, on Harry's behalf? He's in a weird role here. "It... it's complicated, that's all."

"It shouldn't be any more complicated than it seems from where I stand--er, sit," and he smiles, which does get a corny laugh out of me, unfortunately. He's pleased. "Will you fess up to me, bro? You walk around the issue, and so do the rest of us. I can't imagine, at this point, that I am going to veer off into the realm of fantasy--or even step over a boundary--when I ask, just the two of us in a room, in your home, at the start of a _brand new year_ \--if there is more going on that you're ready to actually admit? I know there is a lot of tension between you two friendship-wise, and I've always gotten that your friendship sort of got strangled because of the rumors--but after all of this time? You should be able to talk about it by now, shouldn't you? You should be able to move on without having it out when you get some time together... shouldn't you? No?"

It's not so easy, is it? What he says sounds good--hypothetically. I'd love if it were actually like that. For awhile, even, it probably was. But things are messy again! _Fuck it all_.

I glance at my phone with varying degrees of interest. Was this his attempt at being an adult, calling? I have to admit, such a thing took guts. I wouldn't have dared call him.

But we were at very different ends during that argument. He's probably not the one who should have been calling. It should have been me calling him... if I had wanted to.

I grab my forehead and bury into it, grimacing. It's not on Harry's end where most of our problems lie, not really. It's me.

"I am bad news, Payno."

"You're not, though. You're a soft sap with a giant heart, bro." The outrage! The lies! "When's it going to end? Are you going to spend your whole life feuding? That's dumb, because I know he's one of your favorite people on earth."

"I mean, last week on a tarmac in Florida, Liam..."

"He called you." He points to the phone, as if I very well do not know it's sitting there. "You're like brothers. We all are. It's not done. That's--love you, but... that's ridiculous."

"For me, it is done. For now."

"But why do you have to be this way?"

I blink away from his question a moment, struck by it unexpectedly. He's right; I'm being difficult. It's like my default state of being wherein Harry is involved.

Could it just be so simple again? Could I just be silently angry and outwardly fond of him without him realizing? Fuck!

Liam's leaned over his knees, hands together, "Lou."

"Huh?"

"Do you... this is a hell of a question," he prefaces, offering one hand out to me to either protect himself or prepare me--or both. "Do you have those feelings for him?"

" _Really_?"

"All you have to do is say no."

"No."

"I don't think I can believe you. There is nothing "else" that could be going on only between the _two of you_ that Niall, me, Zayn, or anyone else on our crew wasn't allowed to understand."

My throat is already swollen. I can't have this conversation, "I can't... I can't."

"You can. You should. I think you need to."

"You don't understand, though. It's not like that--the feelings aren't current. It all traces back, and things... or feelings weren't dealt with the correct way."

He wants more elaboration. Bless him, he's not being over-dramatic about this. I suppose he is the perfect person to discuss this with. He is probably my best friend at this point. Sure, I have my mates from home, still have my best friend from my "real" life, but Liam has been there for me every step of the way over the last year. That's not to say we don't argue. But here we are, and he's quietly asking me if I have feelings for Harry Styles as he sits across from me in my office and pulls his knees and feet up onto the ottoman, getting comfortable. I suppose, can I do this? Can I... I mean... am I allowed to... wait a second... am I allowed to admit this to myself in a serious manner?

"Go on."

"He had feelings for me," I manage at a whisper with my fingers over my lips, staring at Liam as he digests it. He's not sure he wants to believe it, an eyebrow cocked. "That is, he told me he did." Now it hits him, that this is something Harry actually told me. It's something real, something very quiet, something I've tried to make sense of for years. "Christmas of two-thousand thirteen, we were really close-ish, more than usual, I guess. Things had been a little strained on his end, and I didn't get it. It was a couple of days after Christmas--I don't remember exactly when, it's still kind of a blur of time," and my hands move around my head, my eyes down to the right on the old wood floors, trying to recall as carefully as I can. "We went to a movie, came back here, actually, and he told me. We talked about it a bit, but in the moment I was so overwhelmed, and I didn't realize he wasn't just saying, like, _yeah, ha ha, mate, I'd like a go at you_ , but like... I think... yeah, he was trying to say, I think--that..."

It's hard to say aloud.

"Oh wow," Liam says so softly, letting the words settle. "Real feelings? Like... he... loved... you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, exactly those words, actually." My hand covers my mouth and I grasp over my lower face, ashamed of my own memorized behavior. I cringe to think of it.

"Oh _shit_!"

Exactly. I find my hands on my chest, as if holding it comforted for the younger versions of both myself and Harry, "Neither of us handled the conversation very well. We said we'd talk about it later, when we had some time. That night changed everything. I didn't return his feelings, and he started to pull away."

"And you let him."

"Yeah, exactly. I let him pull away, because I didn't want to deal with it. I mean, Liam, honestly, I've never had feelings for a male--I consider myself straight. And I started to feel almost, like... guilty. That I couldn't reciprocate his feelings? Or even--like, if there was a part of me that loved him--and I do love him, I do--more than I wanted to admit, it wasn't enough then to jump out of the window and say I felt the same. I still can't say that, and I am pretty sure, I guess-- _I guess_ \--that I do have some feelings for him, but they are hard to make sense of with all of the things that have compounded on top of that night and all of the time since. Being on break, I've been forced to like... I can't push it off anymore. The thing is, I know it's all my fault, the way things are. Every single time we get on even footing, somehow-- _somehow_ , Liam--I manage to dig everything back up. It's always like two cuts beneath the surface."

"You've never spoken about it?"

"Sat down and had a conversation about it? No, never. But there's been a lot of other communication. Every time I've been around a girl in his company, I get this look. Every single time. And then when I started ignoring it, it amped him up even more--there's like all of these levels of bullshit on top of bullshit! It almost lingers in the air now that there's not a business resting on it."

There's a lot going on behind Liam's expression, which I can see, before he asks, "Do you love him?"

"No--I mean, yes, as my friend, but... I don't know otherwise."

"I feel like if you did love him as more, you'd know?"

"I mean, Liam, I have never even told anyone this. Clearly, I am not the most elegant about my feelings towards him. I'm confused, I really am."

"Does he  _still_ have feelings for you?"

"No," I laugh, genuinely, which is the least funny thing in the world. It's so ironic. "No."

"Then what's he screaming at you about, eh?"

"I made the horrible mistake of bringing it up in a less-than-graceful way."

" _On the tarmac_?" I feel like I'm going to be hearing "on the tarmac" from him for the rest of my life. That's fitting, maybe.

"Yeah," I laugh, too, and I scrunch my face up, looking to him to react for me because I can't navigate my own emotions right now. "It was like his face ripped off. He went full-on Monster-Harry."

"Did he get the raging veins?" He motions to his own neck, and when I nod, he grimaces. "That bad?"

"Yep, the whole thing. It was horrible. We were screaming about the dumbest things, Liam--and for half of it, there were people--his mom, Jeff--there was so much that just came spilling out. I've felt horrible."

"Try to come at it objectively," he tries to help. "He's on a yacht with a model in the Caribbean while you're sitting here torturing yourself about how you're not in love with him."

"Whoa, wait a minute... let's not say things like that, lad, huh? Let's not do that."

"Where did I lie? Where am I wrong? You've got a fucking gorgeous girlfriend out there waiting to go meet more of your friends, Lou--fuck him; if he wants to ruin your friendship, let him. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I know you really don't feel that way, and I'm really, genuinely sorry for just saying all of this to you, though I appreciate the outlet. Harry's your good friend, too."

"Yeah, and?" He asks. "Whatever it is that is between the two of you is between the two of you. It sucks to know you're on the outs right now, but... it'll work out."

"How so?"

"You're being purposely thick, though, aren't you?" He asks me, flatly, staring at me like I have two heads--I do! I fucking do! "You have to talk to him about it at some point. It's clearly not water under the bridge, and if there aren't feelings lingering that you're too afraid to admit, what's to stop you from ironing out everything in the past going forward? Flat out. Just be like, "Hey, remember that time you said you loved me? Let's talk about that...""

I can't help my laugh of both disbelief and despair, resting back fully against the gingham wing-back chair fully, putting my weight there, and moan my laughter, "Noooooo...!"

"But," he says, so seriously, now, leaning back over his knees with his feet on the floor again, with his hands together, "if there's nothing to be afraid of, why haven't either of you tried to fix it?"

"It's awkward, Liam. It's awkward. He had real feelings for me at some point, and I hurt him." He frowns. "I did. I probably even enjoyed it at some point."

"Don't say that. You'd never purposely hurt him. He's like your teddy-bear. You protect him in bubble-wrap from everything when you can... still now."

"No, I did. There were times I would know he was in the room and would just go right in on Eleanor or whatever... terrible, terrible friend I am."

"That is a dick move," he confirms.

"That's the problem; I've been a dick about the entire thing. We've both been passive-aggressive about it, and he likes to pretend he's got something against me over something I did wrong. I did nothing wrong! Now, suddenly, here I am, like... why was I that way? Is there more to it? What am I doing?"

"Pretty sure what's happening right now is that you're expressing you've got feelings for him."

"Is it? I mean, thanks, Liam, do I pay you by the hour? Do you also write prescriptions?"

"I would love to give you something to chill the fuck out," he agrees. "But I think you've been trying to do too much of that lately, in the wrong places. I'm not saying now, but you're definitely going to need to talk to him about it. You know that, don't you?"

"I'm getting the picture," I hesitantly sigh. It's not something I haven't known for awhile, but it is certainly something I never wanted to embark on. I can't even imagine where this would happen and how I would bring it up. Things before I left, on the tarmac, were fucking insane. He even threw his hat at me like a fucking frisbee and hit me on the neck with it--and then was happy about it! After all of this time, bringing that up is going to be extremely difficult. That is, if he even wants to give me a second more of his time. At this point, I am sure neither of us really wants to talk about anything in depth. I am still licking my wounds, and I am sure he is, as well. He really came at me about basically everything I have ever done wrong--it came down to my existence, really. All of his anger just came out at me, versus me, who, while my tone toxic, hadn't really gone at him with anything too personal, because, really, I don't think many bad things ABOUT Harry.

I've always adored him.

He has not been so thrilled with me, as evidenced by how easily he rattled off every mistake I've made and everything he's thought about it.

We've had words before about things, but this had been a whole new level.

"What are you afraid of?"

Losing my greatest friend more than I already I have? Or the scariest of all, "What if he still has feelings for me? And then I tell him no again. But I don't want him hurting about it anymore--I mean, if he hurts about it... but..." I don't know what to do or say anymore. Liam's right; I'm going to have to bring it up. Harry and I had been on good terms for months, but were there times we'd be sharing a laugh at something, more privately, and I'd look at him and see that happy light shining a bit more brightly than it usually did? Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I'm scared of, of hearing that this is still real for him. And then having to face this situation as an adult and then my own feelings about it. To think of further burning the bridge, if this isn't handled correctly, terrifies me.

But things are already pretty bleak; I suppose we might need to hit rock bottom before we can start to rebuild whatever friendship we might have left.

I love that kid.

I'm so conflicted.

We're sitting at brunch at a long farm-house table in a trendy restaurant in London, and I've got good friends around me when my phone next rings.

Liam hears who it is by the ringtone from where he's sitting at the other side of the table. I look to him for direction, and he smoothly gives me a nod to pick up.

What else have I got to lose here?  
  
I excuse myself from my girlfriend with a light peck on her cheek and stand, sliding behind a few chairs as I accept the call, phone to my ear, "Happy New Year?"

There's at least a three second pause on the other end, "Happy New Year. You picked up."

"It would seem. What's up?"

"Oh, uh..." Liam was right: Harry does sound "happier" in a lighter sense, though maybe there's some edge in his voice, considering the circumstances of the last time

There's a welling of emotion inside, and I'm... I don't even know what it is. I'm irrationally hurt, upset, and panicked...

My silence does nothing for him at all, because he goes quiet, too.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah?"

I press my forehead to the cold glass of the old window, and only when my breath has fogged up the glass do I breathe out the question, "Did... uh... did I hurt you?"

"We've said worse to each other."

No, no, that's not what I meant. Do I do this? I've just got to. I hold my breath, then burst and squeeze my eyes closed about it, "Did I hurt you when I didn't say I loved you back that night?" The moment escapes me, and I've hesitated a few seconds too long, but the silence is telling. "We've talked about a lot of things--even had some heavy conversations since then, but... we've, well, we've never talked about that."

Nothing.

"What was that?" He asks, this time, and maybe he's moved to a more quiet surrounding, because there's less noise on his end.

I can't ask it again. I am physically unable to

"Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm... here."

"What's going on? Why did you ask that?"

That night, coupled with other factors, basically began the beginning of the end of our tight friendship, but we act like it never happened. I barely acknowledged it prior to this break, even, but it's increasingly difficult to pretend it didn't have a large impact, "I want you to know that I'm sorry if I hurt you."

" _If_ you hurt me?" S-H-I-T. "I, uh--where's this coming from? It's--that was a long time ago. Years ago. Why bring that up now? The new year?" His laugh is uneasy; I've taken him by surprise. "Things are all right."

"Listen to me," motherfucking asshole, " _things are not all-right_ ," I breathe into the phone, holding it to my mouth and away from my ear. "I'm not all right."

When my phone is back to my ear, there's not a direct response that comes back at me. There's a lot of silence.

My stomach is in knots, and I grab at my gut with my left hand, willing him to say something here.

"I don't think this is a conversation to be had right now and out of the blue," over the phone and without time to prepare thoughts. But the door is wide open. "I hope you don't think that's what happened the other day. I think it'd be, like... good... if we could sit down sometime and talk about it--I mean, yeah, it might be good. Cathartic," for who? I never should have picked up. He sounds so surprised by my take here. What have I done? What if I've been making all of this up in my head? Oh my God, he's in the Caribbean not giving a fuck about me, Liam was right, and here I am obsessing. "What's going on?"

I'm going to be sick, "You're the one who called me. Why? What do you want from me? I feel like you've said everything you could possibly have to say."

"Here I am, apologizing for that... kind of the point of the entire call."

"Why are you calling me like you have to make nice, even? Fuck off."  
  
"I didn't plan on this phone call going well, exactly," he defends himself. "I at least wanted to try to make amends."

"For what purpose? We're barely friends anymore."

"That's up to you, isn't it? It's been that way for some time. Every decision that gets made about our friendship has to first go through you."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" And he's lit-up. " _Why did I call you again_?"

"Dunno, got bored living it up with all of you celebrity friends? Too busy signing contracts and shit, done having your new "people" plant stories, needed a reality check back with the fools in your old band?"

"Louis," he draws, and I can practically see him pulling his hand through his hair and giving me the death-stare, "we're about to get in another fight."

"It's a never- _fucking_ -ending _war_ we're in, and you're always losing, for the record."

He laughs, either out of frustration or something far-more alarming for me. I've cursed him, but at this point in he conversation, I've managed to put him at ease, "Whenever we do have a chat, you know, it's probably not going to be a light one. We might need survival gear and safe words."

"I'd agree."

"Let's just cool off awhile more, and we'll catch back up next week or something. Is that doable? Be upfront with me."

"Nothing's going to change in a week. We'll still be in a war," I assure that he doesn't need to hurry to get back here for a talk.

"Are you in London?"

"Yes."

"When you're done setting up your battleships, can you go feed my plants?"

"Goodbye."

"Can you, though?"

"You... you're a nightmare."

"But you're laughing, right?"

I stare at the phone, then raise it back to my ear. I can hear talking in the background, so I know he's still there. The connection has been a little spotty anyway, "You don't... still have feelings for me... do you?"

The question jars him again, and for a moment he stutters to himself, "You know I don't."

"I think there may be a tiny problem here," I just barely manage to get out, rubbing my forehead. What a concept, freedom... what if... I just... tell him?

"This is strange," and I can hear his honest confusion. "I just don't, like, I don't get why you're bringing this up. Why are you thinking about us in terms of that? That was a long time ago." That--them-- _Larry_. "Explain to me, Louis."

The way he says my name just slices through me. He's said it the same way a million times. It's different this time: hits its target, and my hand holds my chest.

"Lad, I, uh, I think I've--I've... got some feelings for you. Discovered them recently, buried under some things. I've a bit of angst about it. A bit uptight. Mildly panicked. Close to death, here, actually."

"You're... _you've got_... are you fucking with me... are you _fucking_ with me?"

"I am actually not."

It's stutters and silence awhile, his and mine. I already know what's coming, because he doesn't know what to do with the information.

I'm free because it's out of me; maybe this was all I needed, just to unload a tiny secret that, really, I don't want to do anything about. But maybe if I just tell him...

"I... Lou, I don't... know... what to say. What, well... no, I don't know."

"No, I'm not--I don't want you to say anything. I'm just... that's why I brought it up, I think it's a source of my, uh... tension with you, sometimes. That's why... uh, _war_."

"What... but... _what_? But what? Louis, please... are you messing with me?" It would be a cruel thing. How could he think that of me? "I'll be pissed, but... just tell me you're having a go?"

But he knows better than to think I would do that, of all people. Me, who freaked out at management for using our friendship as a marketing tool early on. Me, who started to cringe when he'd just look at me in public, picturing the YouTube videos of video clips sewn together with cheesy background music, played in slow-motion and fully dissected--every touch, every blink. But how bad is it now, these last three, four months? I barely look at him when he talks when we're on camera. If I do, it's a quick glance? But now I'm less annoyed that there would be material and more annoyed with how I've come late to this party--to think, what if, back then, I'd let myself realize?

It's a horrible thought. It's kept me up two nights this week alone.

"It's not a-a-a... _thing_ ," I quickly manage. "It's not like it was for you." This is true, but perhaps that came out wrong. "It's just... quiet. And I think that keeping it to myself is a problem for... our... friendship."

I've rendered him speechless... and then I realize... silence or...

I pull the phone down from my ear, my stomach dropping as I swallow down the bobbing knot in my throat: do I pretend the connection just dropped?

Or acknowledge the fact that maybe he just hung up on me?

Oh... oh my God. What did I think was going to happen, though? I'm numb. I have no idea what to do. I've never been here before; I'm in a foreign way!

By the grace of the brunch Gods, I get back to the table with a Mimosa in my hand and sit back down on my chair, stunned by how physically light I feel.

I'm suddenly ravenous for the first time in a week, and I attack my brunch with renewed vigor, if not only because the pit of my stomach has dropped out totally.

I wait for at least a text. I wait an hour. Three. Five. A day. Two days. I check my phone over and over again until my girlfriend takes it away, annoyed it has my attention.

Finally I get a text on the second night as I'm finally having a laugh with my family, at dinner back in Doncaster, retreating here like a wounded puppy in need of healing.

_Can you talk for a bit?_

Yes, I can. In fact, it's the first time in the last week I've been in a headspace enough to have a real conversation with anyone, but my fingers are too shaky to reply right away. There are so many different ways I could reply--short answers, long answers, emoji answers... I can play it off real cool, real casual. That's what I'm going to have to do anyway. The truth is, I've had so much anxiety and worry about hearing back from him, so finally even getting this text message is relieving. Over the last couple of days, too, after having said goodbye to my girlfriend at the airport until I next see her for a skiing trip in a couple of days, I've been able to talk it out a bit with myself. As difficult as it'd been, it was what I had needed to do, just drop the truth-bomb. I still don't know what to really make of it all, but there seems to be some semblance of acceptance settling in a bit too comfortably; it's sort of like this little part of me shunned from the rest of me just came quietly back around, just showed up, and the rest of me is not so surprised.

Part of me wants to welcome this little new friend: _Hello, little lad, I'm so sorry you've been hurt. Come, let's have a bit of tea and maybe a hug..._

That is what it feels like. It's so new, almost precious. I don't want to yell or shame that little part of me. It was so shy, and I don't want to regret it and send it back to exile.

"Your turn, Boo."

"Skip," I say, lowering the phone underneath the coffee table I'm sitting at, between in and my mum's couch, as the game goes to my stepdad.

_Game night with my family._

_Give me a call when you get a chance. Pass my hello on to your mum and family._

I... I don't obsess. I don't know why.

I set the phone back down on the floor and enjoy my night with my family, happy to. A weight has been dropped from my shoulders, a burden disposed of.

A lot of things have happened in the last three days for me, but also for Harry, that I've heard, and therefore also two other people: Niall and Liam.

"You've got to do what's best for you," I hear my mom say, as she lifts the dice, and though she means it jokingly in reference to one of my sisters, I wholeheartedly agree.

I've got to do what's best for me.

This grown-up stuff is hardcore. But there's some part of me that is really at ease about him, like now that I've told Harry there's another layer to this, it's no longer a ghost. I'm not followed around by it, not chased, no longer haunted. If I had only done this years ago, how different might things be? But these feelings weren't there like this then. Or, if they were, I was too blind to see. It seems that this has been having an effect on many of my relationships, not just on the one with him. I feel as if I can be more at ease and live in the moment with the people who love me. That's what this is all about, anyway, and so I've become embarrassed of my alcohol-induced spree last week, and the way I've treated certain people, and I only feel love inside currently.

"Harry says hi, sends his love to you all," I say to my family, and they're all happy and smiley about it, telling me to text him back their sentiments. I won't, of course.

When it's my turn again, I put down my glass of tea, grab for the dice, shake them in my hand, and let go, watching it all unfold; that's 2016, I've decided.

I sleep like a baby--I mean, I wake and I'm a spry chicken. I spend my day with all of my siblings, and I'm really glad I made the decision to come home.

"Harry texted," my mum says around seven the next evening, handing the phone over to me across the kitchen island as I stir up brownie-batter, seeing the name notification.

"What's it say?"

"Says," she says, after I've unlocked it for her and returned to my brownie-preparing, "he's ten minutes... from... _here._..? I think! Lou!"

We look at each other, her with awe and me with disbelief.

"Wait, what?" I ask, after blinking like five times, and I reach for my phone.

"Yeah!" She laughs, turning the phone around.

_I'm like 10 minutes from your mum's, sitting in my car in a parking lot. Not real sure why..._

What the fuck? I abandon the brownie spoon in the batter, and my mum and I switch places. I gingerly take the phone, bringing it up close to my eyes so I can make sure I read this correctly. He's here? In Doncaster? This is big news, and I excuse myself without excusing myself. I'm pretty sure the habitants of the kitchen get it. I text him back, only asking where, exactly, he's taken residence. He texts me back the name of an old grocer. I know exactly where it is; it's been there since as long as I've been alive, this little private grocery shop that sits back. It's probably less than ten minutes away, but I'm not going to bait him about it. If he reached out to me, he wants me to know he's here. I don't even know, exactly, what to think, but I know he's not going to show up here. He can't bridge the seven minutes or the three miles, despite how many thousands he's probably been traveling lately.

I grab my car keys and leave the house in my beloved slippers.

I'm not even thinking anything as I drive, as I'm not sure what's happening here.

I find him parked next to a hedge. It's not a flashy car--looks like maybe he borrowed it from a friend or something; it's not his usual. I only know it's him because he's the only blob sitting in his car in this parking lot, whereas most of the other cars seem empty, the owners of them being actual patrons inside the shop. I turn off my car lights and pull right into the spot next to him, to his right. I turn off the car, take out the keys, and get out before I even go to look at him. I lean down and glance in the passenger side window. He's looking back, bundled up in a heavy coat and a beanie. I can only just barely make his face out.

He unlocks the door after about five seconds of window-staring, and then I cautiously get in.

The car is freezing cold. He'd turned the heater off at some point and never turned it back on. But he's got gloves on, so...

When the door is closed, I look right at him, finally. Huh, so he's tan. Huh, so the sun will do that? He is the sun, though...

"Fancy finding you here..."

He laughs and his gloved right hand comes up and he smacks it full on his entire face, like he can't even believe how stupid I am or that he's here.

We don't talk for a minute or so, and I don't panic about it, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness better. It's not like he's going anywhere at this point: no hurry?

"Why are you here? Actually, I mean, why are you sitting in your car, parked next to a hedge, in the darkest part of the lot, bundled up like a serial killer? I saw a little old lady suspiciously checking you out... cops might come; won't look good in the papers come tomorrow morning, hmm? Are you on the run from the Kardashian mob? Can't say I wouldn't tell them where you are..."

" _Stop_ ," he laughs, just barely, and I finally look at him. He's looking down at his lap, pulling at a thread on his jeans with a frayed glove fingertip.

"You really pulled over into a parking lot," it softly wiggles out of my mouth as I'm trying to decipher his profile. It's difficult since his eyebrows are covered by his beanie and his mouth is tucked under his scarf. He does the nose-scrunch, though, the one that he tries to use when he wants to hide a smile or finds something particularly amusing. He couldn't bring himself the last three miles. That he's here at all is the head-scratcher. I'm unsure what to ask, what to say. Or how I even got here, honestly. I barely remember driving here. I couldn't even recount which route I took, honestly, if one of those said-cops asked me.

I breathe out, heavily, so some of the vapor drifts over to him.

It doesn't make him do anything, though, but lower his eyes further, no attempt at all to go to turn on the heater.

I lean in closer, trying to lighten the mood, and keep going until he cracks a smile. Love that. Love that smile so much.

I smile, too, delighted by the face so close, and its shapely shadows. I manage my best Gollum voice, "Lemonnnns, my precious."

His laugh is so magnetic, so huge, so magnificent in the moment that I gape as he throws his head back against the headrest, eyes tightly closed, cheeks scrunched. Only when his laughter calms does he even ask, incredulous, eyes right in mine with no warning, and I'm sucked in, motherFUCKER, barely having backed off an inch, leaned into the seat divider, "Lemons?!"

I mumble something or another about lemons under my breath, then clarify for him when he flicks my wrist with his gloved fingertips, "You smell like lemons."

"Is that a good thing, though?" He's perplexed. "Does that mean I'm bitter... sour...?"

"No, no. No, it does not mean anything but that you smell like fresh lemons... baby powder... vanilla... mostly lemons... summertime... butterflies..."

" _Lemons_ ," he quietly recounts, both of his dimples on display but none of his teeth showing.

His eyes are anchored into my soul, and I nearly choke about it.

"Lemons."

"And you like the lemons."

I nod at him, nearly with my nose, which means I barely nod at all, and my index fingertip on the divider lifts and slips onto the arm of his coat.

I nudge at the material, my eyes down on it, on the warm dark scratchy wool, just wanting the tiniest bit of touch to ground the moment, to check myself. And him.

We go silent. We go deep off the record--bungalow-sheet-diving-deep-- _quiet-whispers-over-cookies-about-feelings-three-years-ago_ deep.

"Are you happy?" It's his entire life I'm asking about, hiding in the front seat of a car with him, away from the entire world. I need to know.

"I am," he tells me so quietly, so I understand there is nothing unsaid. His short sentence is powerful, and I now understand why he's here, I think: closure. "Are you?"

My fingertip comes away slowly, never having looked back up into his eyes, and I begin, at the rate of photosynthesis, to move back wholly to my seat, my space.

"Not sure sometimes," I admit. I haven't been "happy" in some time; it's not quite a destination, though, is it? Sometimes I feel happy. Am I content in life? No. Least of all lately...

Though I swear I'm moving, his face is never-the-further away, and alas I stop all movement and find him even closer, his head tilted so slightly towards mine.

His mouth is close, then _so_ close, and then it's warm near mine. I can feel his every breath, the round shapes of air that leave his lips and the soft huff from his nose. It's nudges of our noses, and then a cheek to a cheek, and a fingertip or ten buried back on the scratchy wool of his warm coat, to snuggle in, to keep safe, to keep warm. There are no words. There's no eye-contact. Everything before me is blurry and dark, just as maybe I need it to be.

It's a dry nudge because my lips have been open to the air, stationary, for what seems like long, torturous minutes; they're currently not pliable or soft.

His breath is hovering over my mouth, too, much colder than mine from sitting out here in this frigid car for... who knows... how long... He doesn't stand a chance, though, that heavy docking of his nose beside mine and the breath in, the first audible noise before it's _fuck-all-everything-ever._ It's him taking over. It's all at once, soft terrified nudges into the darkness dissolved, and his mouth is softer than my own, wetter than my own, but my hands are warmer, and his neck is cold. I hold it with both of my hands as our mouths settle in, heavily, to just the one meeting, the perfect dock, the perfect latch--and I deeply fall prey to its journey.

Chin fitted into chin, nose beside nose, lips stacked on top of each other's, mine more-so over his, and I suck--fuck, I suck because I can, because it needs to be done. The suction seals it all together, the motionless long lip-lock of uncertainty gone, his mouth following mine as I eagerly try to find how deep this kiss can go. His mouth his never-ending, his tongue warm and so velvety, his taste sweet and savory, and my hands have fallen from holding his neck and jaws to the divider, stunned.

It doesn't matter, though, because his hands have gripped into my sweater and bunched up so much material I could be sewn to him! I feel wanted, I feel...

I _feel_!

I'm touching him again--timid to--scared I'll ruin it, scared he'll stop--scared. Just scared, though I'm so safe against his mouth I could absolutely stay here forever.

The kiss abruptly ends, on his behalf, and though his mouth rips so cruelly away, leaving mine wide open and wet, the entire side of his face collides with mine briefly, pinning my cheek to my headrest, and I realize that we have migrated entirely from his side to my side, to my seat, and he's the one leaned over the divider, now, and he's the one with his hands clutching my neck as he paces my face away. He doesn't want to kiss me anymore, but I won't let him go from where he is. His cheek is now to my jaw. His face is buried in my shoulder, and I can feel every single hot breath pulsating there.

His kiss has warmed my entire body. What a gift he has.

My lips are up and open to the air, and I shakily breathe out the first gasp of air. The thought occurs to me I may not have been breathing for the last minute or so.

It's a gasp of air, but there's a bit of a sob in it, too--fuck, I'm sobbing. Tears and everything, all at once.

I wrap my arm around his neck, my right hand leaving its place where its been tightly holding one of his coat collars, to basically just let that hand cover my mouth.

It's so warm, it's swollen--every part of me is fucking swollen! I was the Grinch, and now my heart has grown three sizes. My chest can't even contain it.

My face finds its way to his shoulder, too, to the scratchy coat, and I go there willingly, with my own hand grasping over the back of my head, renewed fingertips in my hair.

I breathe in his lemons and every tiny bit of him I can manage.

My pulse is racing as we separate, all at once--it's mostly him, he's pulling away, but I'm in his eyes, and he in mine. His pupils are dilated and dark, and my body squirms.

Both of his hands are back on the steering wheel, but then one is on his chin, over his mouth.

I've not looked at anything else but him. Not anywhere else.

"... think I love you." I hit the dashboard with the heel of my palm and kick the floor with a slippered heel, as new to my revelation as he is. " _Fuck_."

His forehead goes right to the steering wheel without a further word and bangs down once, heavily, and then he holds himself there before rotating his face.

He looks at me--stares at me--leers at me! His mouth is so swollen and lush, though, that I can barely concentrate, and he murmurs at me, emotional about it all.

Yeah, well, me too.

I sink back against my door's window, watching him as the seconds start to tick very loudly by.

I reach over, finally, with my left hand, to his shoulder, then tug the beanie down over his eyes, so I don't have to see them, and then he sniffles his laugh.

I wipe at my eyes with both of my hands, quickly, since he can't see, before I reach back and unburden his eyes again, and honestly, yeah, I'm crying, like, outright, "Sorry, 'arry." I rub my nose with my hand, then my entire face with both hands as I try to contain the dam that's broken from my eyes. He doesn't ask what I'm sorry about, because he knows. He doesn't inquire. He's not thrilled. He's laughing, though, between sniffles. I'd laugh, too, if I weren't so devastated... his fucking mouth, Jesus CHRIST. I look over, accusingly, at him, at it, and guffaw at him and his stupid happy, tear-stained face as he finally pulls his spine straight and lifts his chin up into the air to try to take a deep breath, exposing his face and neck entirely to me.

My horror, the tiny gasp from inside, at the sight, with brand new eyes, of his parted mouth, his thinned nose, and his wide eyes as he arches his eyebrows at the ceiling...

I sniffle, too, finally, glad to be done with the silent sobbing but very grateful it hadn't come out as audibly as it probably would have if my mouth weren't _quite so_ throbbing with love.

I touch it with my fingers, finally, and literally look down my nose to see if my mouth has changed. It feels... unbelievable right now. I'm happy for it... I...

"I shouldn't have done that."

"Huh," I say, not sure of how to use other words at the moment, eyes latched now right on his profile, again, and his mouth.

He glances back at me, too, and just at my mouth, and it hits me--he's here, too--I mean, that's dumb, but--yeah, we're both in this moment... my mouth and _his mouth,_ too.

He stares at my lips, openly, and even mouths at it, like he's got something to say to it... with his own.

I widen my eyes about it as far as they can go, and it does make him smile all over again, the dimples going so deep the pit of my stomach lurches, and I feel it hit my cock all at once. Oh, FUCK. I groan about it, about the lightning rod that just struck the center of my soul and emanated right out into all of my limbs. It's out there now--it's a thing, existing, hanging over us and strung between us in the front seat of a car in a parking lot in the store I've been shopping for groceries in since I could ride my bike. Everything seems to slow down as my right hand grabs at my lower stomach even under my own sweater, trying to calm down. There's a massive hatching of things inside--butterflies in my stomach, bursting forth after centuries of being within a cocoon, and my eyes narrow entirely on him. The distance between us feel so fucking far, even if it's just a couple of feet, and I physically breathe in through my nose, loudly.

His eyes are crinkled up as he laughs at me, and he reaches over with his heavily gloved right hand about it, so carefree, so Harry, so...

I grab at his hand, though, with my own, taking it down, but he's not mad about it, lets me take it down with mine, but it's a touch--and I just... can't... do this...

"Gotta go," comes out of my mouth, and I go for the door-handle, like honest to God, because I can' t breathe, having quickly let go of his giant, loving, harmless hand.

He hums about it and says, "Okay, Lou," and he is probably dying on my behalf judging by his _grossly overwhelming_ adoration and endearment. I'm physically incapacitated by it all, most especially the way I catch his eyes for that last second, how there's words on his hitched breath he's trying to hold back.

I manage to get out of the car and gasp when the cold air and the wind hits. I need air. I need to breath. Apparently I keep forgetting how.

I stand near the trunk of the car, hands on my sides, honestly deeply breathing in air as I try to come down from the unexpected panic attack. My face is still hot, my legs shaky, freezing cold in my sweaters, newly in love with Harry Styles and sporting a boner to match. How old am I again? Fifteen? I give it a soothing rub anyway, though, absentmindedly, my mouth on fire and my chest tight. What happened? What's happening?

I cry a little--look, no one has to know.

It's just me, the car and... Harry, yeah, that guy is somewhere in this too.

I lean against the trunk and over, as my breathing comes down, hands on my knees, and just take it in.

He's happy, he'd said--that is, he didn't come here to kiss me--duh me, right? He is with someone else, happy with someone else.

The car door opens, closes, and then he's next to me, all fifty, bundled feet of him that smells like lemons and love, and he whispers, "I'll follow you home," taking my elbow with a hand free of a glove, now, which leads my heart to flip over again. He's let me stand out here like this for at least three minutes, and I realize, as I look at him, with widened eyes and a still warm, buzzing mouth, that he's let me try to compose myself. It's not an overreaction or anything; I literally just had a panic attack. He's seen those before on me, and I've seen some on him. But there's something hinting in his eyes--a happiness, an amusement, a smugness, as he motions me to go on and walk towards my car, leading me halfway and then letting me go like he would a child on a bike, tender and doing his best to not appear overly concerned.

I stop and turn to really take this in, to make sure I really fucked it up this much and this is the guy--is this the guy? Yep, this is the guy. He is the person. The one.

Twinkles of light, even, are coming back at me, as he stands there with his hands in his pockets, all enlightened but with no other clues as to his state to give me! _Noooo_!

"It's you," I accept. Truly, I AM SO FUCKED. I push my hair back with my right hand, and declare, miserable at he epiphany I've had. " _Fuuuuck_."

I've feelings for this guy. They aren't returned, though, is the message I'm receiving, and that's the worst feeling in the world, especially following one of the best. What a paradox! I'm alive!

All he does is smile, though, then points through his pocket down at my feet, so I look down, too, as he simply professes his ice-breaker, "I quite like your slippers."


	7. Stringing Stars

  
One of the things I struggled with early on in this adventure is that if you don't set limits, if you don't decide to give a part away of yourself, you might end up giving away everything and all of yourself. There was one specific time that I had had enough. I was on the phone with my mum--I recall it so well--and I just remember her proposing this idea, that I needed to set aside a side of myself to give to everyone else in order to keep the majority of me private, safe, and untouched. It maybe took me a little longer to embrace this than any of the other boys, but I think in really learning the ins and outs of why it had to be that way, I established a safer place for myself, to the point where I have never had to ask myself who I am.

There are little things I do in order to keep sane. Yeah, I will share some of my life on Instagram, because I love that--I love people seeing where I've been, who I've been with, and I love meeting people, much to the former chagrin of former security detail--but instead of posting where I exactly I am when exactly I am, everything is on a delay of 2 or 3 days. I will post a picture of my mates and I, but it's two days after the fact when I've already left, two days after the fact when social media has blown up that I was at this place with that person. When I do this, it allows me some control. It allows me to say: here, look into my life, but... let me have one.

The fact is, I am very aware of my success in relation to my talent. That is to say, did I ever expect my vocal abilities would provide me and my family a lifetime of financial stability? No. I've been a part of something that I still lie in bed at night and try to make sense of. I know that this isn't just a balancing act, but that it's a service. Secretly, I think I am the one of five--or four--young men who best understands the role of the fans. We can all say, "Oh, yeah, this isn't possible without the fans. The fans are everything!" but I feel like I am the one who really cares to live it. Please, don't get me wrong, I'd rather someone not scream at me when I'm standing in a grocery store line, but if we're somewhere? I actually enjoy having a conversation. I enjoy seeing the faces of people who think I am worthy enough to be part of something like One Direction.

The problem is, not everyone in my personal life can handle that, so there is a balancing act. It's hard to find people who get it, and when I do, I like to keep them around.

I try my best, I do, and again, sometimes I am sure I have been able to do the best balancing act with having a life and mates outside of all of "that."

It is admittedly difficult trying to find a romantic partner who is not just "yeah, it's fine, it doesn't bother me" on the surface rather than actually able to withstand it all.

I take a long drag on my last cigarette of the night, hold it in and tilt my head up to gaze at the broad, clear open sky above me and its bright, twinkling stars, then cloud it all in smoke with one exhale. That sounds about right, doesn't it? As it stands, things in my life are clouded as such. Smoke and mirrors, seems like that's my going theme. As it happens, it's safest that way right now, I contemplate, as I drop my cigarette down on the wet cobblestone below my boots and then carefully step onto it with my heel and squish. For good measure, I twist my heel in and then pace my hands on either side of me on this stone fence.

I haven't been alone all day. I've been trying not to be completely alone for a good three or four days. I don't trust myself. I don't trust me to be alone while having access to my cell phone, which has been strangely present in my pocket wherever I go--meaning, I am often thinking about it. Do I have it? Did I lose it? Has it gone off? Of course it has. It's my last night here, out of the realm of cities, cars, and being on the move. I've had a great week with my mates, with my girlfriend. I've gone through at least four packs of cigarettes--I'm chain-smoking; the chimneys at these ski resorts have nothing on me. Here it was one of my resolutions to try to cut back, wasn't it? But look at all that the New Year has already brushed at my feet.

I haven't heard from any of the boys in a few days. It's probably the longest I've gone without hearing from any of them since the break began, which, considering the current circumstances, is a bit jarring. I've been thoughtful about it today, as when I woke up this morning I took a scroll through my Twitter at-replies. Considering the magnitude that can be overwhelming there, I usually don't casually scroll through. If I do, it's quick. Not this morning--I had been up early, earlier than anyone else, but hadn't had enough energy to get out of bed, which means, against my better judgment, I ended up doing an extensive scroll. It's nearly always the same combinations of things, though: _1.) Can you please respond to me? Follow me! It's my birthday! 2.) DAD Y DON'T YOU LUV ME ANYMOR 3.) LARRY AF 4.) I just want you to know that you saved my life, you're a special snowflake pumpkin-face cinnamon roll Easter bunny. 5.) Y R U SO UGLY AND CAN'T SING BUT I LOV U RATFACE._

I'd checked the people I follow, of course, checked out my favorite footballers, some friends, but then I kept circling back to my own replies.

It's a wonder, how fast they come in. Are there that many people in this world thinking of me at once? I wonder, do I not do enough with this platform?

I've been in that mood all day, more quiet and withdrawn, and I know it's getting a bit at my mates but I've been fun and games for four days straight. Balance, right?

I'm inside my chalet when my phone next buzzes, sitting on the leather couch with fur throws, in front of a fireplace, watching with amazement as my makes exchange jibes and crack themselves up--surely the help of the weed, as they find themselves hysterical over basically nothing. Whatever! I shake my head at them once more before leaning over towards the coffee table with a wayward hand to grasp at my phone. Surprisingly, it's Niall, and it's our "LADS" group-chat, one that, admittedly, Harry Styles has been basically silent in for--my pulse races as I pretend to have to think about it--a week.

Niall's chat bubble reads what he's clearly read recently, the overall summation of a PR team doing their job well: _Zayn vs 1D boys huh?_

 _Zayn vs Harry more like_ , I reply. It's the truth. And then I wait for a few moments and my fingers leak saltiness and sour tea: _& then there's Harry vs the other ones. Well done, team Azoff... not original but who said it had to be?_

 _What's up with that?_ Liam replies, too, nearly ten seconds after me--and I realize, it's almost like an actual conversation with all of them again. Part of me warms right up!

I know for a fact that Harry and Niall text separately than the group chat, and come to think of it, I am pretty sure Liam and Harry have been in regular communication. Why bring this up in a group chat? I guess Niall originally wanted to talk about Zayn, anyway, and I'd turned it around to Harry. Of course I did--why would I do anything but? Huge mistake on my part, I realize, and try to think of how to turn this around and back to Zayn. A light quip, hmm?

_Sorry, dunno who any of you are???? Lose my number. All the love._

This fucking dick makes it so easy to love his dumb charming existence, and I mutter about it. Let me just sit back here, quietly panic, and let them discuss things.

Niall is quick: _Not sure if kidding or_

 _Plus that officially probably came from your folks, H. Do you have to have us tossed under the bus already?_ Liam! _Not a fan of St. Styles, bro_

"Wow," I whisper aloud, not having expected either Niall or Liam to come right out like this in a group chat. Then again, maybe they haven't been able to get a hold of him privately? Since we generally don't speak about each other to the others, I figure maybe this is exactly what was coming. I know I've heard and read my share of headlines over the past few days--okay, so I caught up a lot this morning on Twitter, so sue me!--and at first I laughed them off, but then I started to think... why is this narrative not dying? Why is it St. Styles vs the rest of us? Surely I know Harry wouldn't pose anything that way, at least not outwardly, but Harry can also, notoriously, be playing a hidden hand. He is outrageously ambitious, despite how he tries to play things off, which is maybe why Liam and Niall are both in on this already. I know I spend less time on social media than they do--significantly--so I can only assume they may be coming at this with more information than I have.

Harry doesn't come back with a response at all, and about thirty minutes later, unable to let it go, I text Liam: _Typical Harry._

_Dunno mate_

_He's a shit._

_No he's not_

_He is, Liam. He's a wolf in sheep clothing. He always has been. I always told you so. He's out for Harry._

_You don't really believe that though_

_After the last week, Liam, actually, yeah, I do. I haven't heard from him in a week. And let's just say, he should have said something by now.._

_What's that mean_

_It means what it means. Don't expect him to pipe up that it's all a misunderstanding is all I'm saying. He's a wolf and a shark and surrounded by bigger sharks._

I would have liked to have been proved differently, but that night I went to sleep without any hope. I was right to, because he never replied. I can't believe it, honestly. There is a very confusing side to all of this. On one hand, we are all like brothers. Sometimes we can't stand each other. But God, we love each other. Pretty sure I'd take a bullet for any of them at any time after any amount of kind or harsh words thrown. Even still, this is where maybe Harry and Zayn differed from the rest of us. Liam is a genuine guy, wears his heart on his sleeve, and Niall is much the same. I'm honest. I'm not always elegant. I'm a mess, sometimes, but I wear it outwardly. Harry's a puzzle that way, which is why I consider there to be 2 of him: Harry, then Monster-Harry. They work together, but we surely rarely ever see Monster-Harry. I like when I do, because at least I know what I'm dealing with.

He can get mad real fast. Like a light-switch. Some people think he's joking, that it's his sense of humor, but really, his "jokes" are rooted somewhere less sincere.

He's a charming lad, and that can get him as far as he wants it to get him, but I know the other side probably better than anyone. I can see his true colors, and he mine.

To some extent, I am sure he dislikes that.

Liam's next text reads: _I think I was too harsh_

Now it's me who doesn't want to reply. I'm very on edge where Harry is concerned, which is one of the reasons I hate to be alone. I haven't even been sleeping in my chalet master bedroom unless my girlfriend is _with_ me. Otherwise, I keep falling asleep out here on the couch. I do not want to get stuck in a position to start over-analyzing why I've not heard from Harry. Everything happened really fast last week. He literally followed my car home, came in to visit with my family for a half an hour, and every time I tried to talk to him, he refused eye-contact or flat-out refused to give his attention to me. He would stay staring at someone else even when I was talking to him. I mean, I'd gotten it, I'd freaked him the fuck out, I am one-hundred percent sure, and myself in the process. He'd gone to the bathroom, and after missing for about ten minutes, I'd wandered out of the kitchen to find him. He'd been talking to my step-dad in the foyer, never having taken his coat off, about something or another, pulling on his gloves.

My step-dad had gone back to the kitchen, leaving us in the foyer alone. I'd gone to say something, but all he'd said was, "It was a mistake."

Honest to God, "it was a mistake," looking straight into my face from fifteen feet away. The point was, he's still my friend. He was my friend first then, no matter what had transpired, but he peaced-out, went to say goodbye to my family while I stood in the doorway of the family living area, probably numb and likely nervous--I just remember being really disconcerted as to what was transpiring--in my slippers. They've not been back on my feet since. I can't look at them without thinking of him or getting that nasty tug in my gut, thinking of the way he'd looked at me, like I am nothing, and just told me "it was a mistake." Then we went to say goodbye, right? And hell, at that point I was as casual about it as he was, I thought, so naturally, I'd just gone to give him a hug goodbye, but he had barely given it back. It was one arm and a tap on my shoulder--not even a clap, but a tap.

I'd tried to make conversation about something--anything--and everything--but he just hadn't been having it.

I never even walked him out past the front step. I stopped there, realizing he wouldn't have noticed or cared if I walked him all of the way out.

Five years of my life is still left on that doorstep. It's as though our entire friendship is a lie at this point, that he could walk out that way, without even a smile. Or laugh. Or awkward shrug. He just walked out with a "bye." I tried to make sense of it--had I said something WRONG? Okay, so what I had said was pretty huge, but I hadn't asked anything of him. He was the one who had--had--he was... he was the one who'd kissed me. And not just kissed me, either, but took my face and pressed me back against the corner of the seat and the car-door when he'd done it. It's not like I'd been asking anything of him. I'd tried every way possible to lighten the mood when we'd gotten back to the house--but the more I tried to set him at ease, it seemed, the worse it'd gotten, until he wouldn't look at me, barely acknowledge me, and decided, apparently, I was the devil.

This is a problem, as this all goes against what I have always known of Harry, even against Monster-Harry. The state of disarray I am in where he is concerned is unprecedented. The following days of this last week, though, the headlines really began. The heat got turned up. I am sure if I were paying as much attention as Niall and Liam, I'd be more fired up than either of them, considering the last time I saw Harry, it was with a swollen mouth and a rubbed-red nose-tip. That it even happened is such a quiet secret, even to me! That car, those tightly sealed windows, the shivering and seeing his breath as we spoke such few words at all? It's out there--out there, unspoken about.

I'd texted Harry the next morning, figuring I'd give it the night to settle, what I had texted him a thousand times before: _All right?_

There really are no words for how it feels to have not gotten a response. Of all people, to be treated this way about something so soft, tender, and loving?

It's painful. It's inside of me, and it's an active volcano. I'm not sure how to deal with any of it, so I try not to at all. I get my redemption elsewhere: I'm open-minded...

Where does the first week of 2016 find me? In the French alps with my mates and my girlfriend, battling with a long-standing love that doesn't need any validation.

It's not so shocking to me, now that I've had some time with it, with the idea of loving him outwardly. Radio silence from him on the matter, however? Crippling.

"I need a smoke," I realize, and I pull away from the couch and my arm from behind a bun of brown hair, leaving the group behind and taking my cigarettes with me off of the gorgeous old coffee table. I see my best friend go to come with me, as he has been doing, because I've been trying to get him with me to prevent myself from having to be alone. Not this time, though. Liam and Niall have given me a bit of stability, here, and grounded me back in reality. I don't know if I'm going to ever be able to make heads or tails of Harry ever again, which is a concerning thought to me. One that I could puff a few cigarettes off of, surely...

Outside, again, but not in my private chalet area, I walk around a bit and a fan manages to spot me. We chat about the day's ski, I give her a hug and offer her a light of her cigarette with my lighter. We chat a bit more before I say goodnight and keep on walking. When I glance back, she's let me be and she's off, heading back into a small cafe that seems to be open nearly all hours of the night. I stop a moment and watch from the darkness as she pretends to faint into her chair, and I find myself smiling around the cancer stick between my lips, then pull it out and have a soft laugh to myself. I watch her a bit more, the way she and her friends are animatedly laughing, before continuing my walk. Alas, I come upon a bench somewhat off by itself in a relatively unlit area and take a seat, pulling out my phone.

I open my text string with Harry, as if somehow the "all right?" I sent those days ago will reveal any secret meanings that he could have interpreted. No, I find: there are none.

It's one thing to ignore me, but Liam and Niall? I don't care how busy he is, who he's with... he should be able to respond to them. He's always got his phone. It never leaves his hand, practically, and I know the other boys know so, which makes Harry's silence that much more annoying. I worry that he's been as quiet with them since last week as he's been with me. This is my place, isn't it? I'm the pacifier. I always have been for the most part, with maybe Liam tying me. I don't really want to walk on into something further with Harry and then have him continue to pretend I don't exist, but...

Enough is enough.

I've my phone to my ear, and I flick my cigarette so the long excess of ash falls to the snowy ground, which I kick fresh snow over to cover, as the phone rings.

It goes to voicemail, but I call back. And then I call back again. The third time, he picks up on the second ring.

" _What_?"

Oh _no_ , "I don't know who you think you are, but I'll remind you real fuckin' quick."

" _Fook_ off," he throws back at me, imitating me so I know he's real mad. "I'm trying to sleep here."

"Respond to Niall and Liam and then you can try to sleep."

"What the fuck," he comes back with, half asleep and now fully awake--whether or not he was actually asleep, I've no way of telling, " _is your problem_?"

"You, Harry." BOOM, first-named him and everything, and I take another log drag of my cigarette to pace myself. "Reply to your boys, because I'm not going to defend you for them. Explain yourself this time. Tonight."

He's grumbling into the phone, and, okay, so it sounds like he was probably asleep, "What is this phone call? You can't be serious... you're serious. You're serious?"

I find myself angry way too fast, but it's not a mystery, I am sure, for either of us. "After your stunts the past week? How about an apology?"

"An apology for what?" His voice is gentle. At first I thought I'd really irritated him. Now he seems relaxed enough to talk a bit.

"You can have as many stories planted as you want, you know, to further your career at the expense of the boys and I, but other stories can pop up too..."

"It's not personal, Lou."

Some part of me has died, because his innocence is gone. I feel the fall from grace inside of me, and my anger dissipates. My eyebrows lift a little, and I direct a casual eye onto the last of my cigarette, suddenly finding it as useless as everything else. It's not going to help this situation or this phone call, after all. Without taking another puff, I put it out on the wrought iron of the bench, then toss it in the trash-can within arm's-length. I tuck that hand under my other arm, close to me, and hug myself. I'm all alone with Harry, here, on the phone. It's a relief he hasn't yet hung up or ended the call, but that may be because perhaps he really is half asleep.

"Why, when you say things like that, do I feel like you actually believe them?" I just barely whisper, deeply concerned. "Do you believe that?"

"There have been so many stories... to be honest, I'm not sure if anyone I know planted those stories. It's possible."

"But.. but do you understand the difference between other people planting stories versus you, yourself, having it done... at the expense of us?"

"I'll talk to Jeff."

"You shouldn't have to talk to Jeff or anyone else to know not to do that? I worry that you're okay with letting that drift into the minds of fans... they don't deserve that. They'd want to see you succeed, Harry, on your own, without you putting us on blast--as if we wouldn't be the most excited people to see what you do or be the first to support you. That's a genuine thing, you know. Liam's putting stuff out, but he's not going around our backs having stories planted."

"I'll talk to Jeff."

I hang my head and decide, here and now, that I can't put myself through this anymore, "Okay."

It goes silent.

I try to remind him, at a whisper, that he kissed me, but all that comes out is in a soft slur, " _'issed me_?"

"I don't really want to talk about that."

"... that's not going to make it go away."

"I don't want to discuss it, honestly."

"We won't, then," I agree, because I can hear the topic has made him highly uncomfortable. "What did you want me to do with this information?"

"What have I been doing with similar information for the last three and a half years?"

A point, I suppose, but not a fair one, and not realistic towards the situation, "I'm not sure how you think we can get by without having a real discussion about this."

"I don't want to."

"Ever?"

" _Ever_."

"I--so... you've _nothing_ to say about it?" How can that even be? Why is he doing this? Fuck!

"Nothing, Lou."

"Are you being held hostage right now?"

"No," he laughs, just barely. "Your feelings don't change mine. I understood that a long time ago. What do you want me to say? We kissed. It was good. And?"

Well, have I ever been so heartbroken?

No.

I'm not sure what's happening right now.

My stomach is in knots, though I am not totally surprised by his take here. He's right: he's had to stuff down feelings. Now I have them, so to him: so what? Big deal. Can it be like this? Can this be a real way that a real person thinks? Harry, no less? Hypothetically, I should know him better than anyone. I should know what to make of the way he's acting, but he says these things so smoothly, so unaffected. The problem is, I am not that way at all. Overwhelmed by the week, by everything I've learned of myself and others in the last week, I can't even keep back at my tears. They flow freely over my eyelids, just a couple of drops enough to ease the despair, but then I blink them away and hold myself a little tighter with his left arm, clutching my own side as I put my head back on the bench, slip down to be more comfortable, and look upward and back to the clear sky previously escaping me.

"Are you there?" He asks, and his voice is softer this time, less abrupt and robotic.

No, I'm barely here, I think, as he wants me to be, as he expects me to be. I try to come up with a response, but my mouth finally softly closes. I've lost him.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, you're right, I guess," I return, struggling through it, and try to shake myself out of it as I force my spine straight once more. "Text the boys, at least. Goodnight."

"Lou," he says quickly, "wait. Wait, just... wait."

Neither of us is sure what for. He doesn't follow up with anything, and I'm too hurt to speak or try to set him at ease. Haven't I done enough of that? I have.

_I have._

When is someone going to try to do that for me? I've never needed that from anyone, but at some point, it might be nice to have someone try to reach my soul, too.

I understand that's not quite such an easy thing over a phone, but if it's not here, now, it's not going to be ever. And that's what hits me: never. Never. Harry... never. It was always this guaranteed assurance I sort of had in the back of my mind, that these boys I grew up with, these boys like brothers to me, were going to be around my whole life, that it would always be us just a phone call away. What I'm getting from Harry, already, after such a short time, is something so sincerely different. Is it my fault he feels this way? Is it because I pushed him away? Surely that definitely plays into the relationship between he and I, but there are so many stipulations I feel like I never realized were there with him.

"It could never happen," he whispers the truth. "It wouldn't work. That's not who we are. It's not worth talking about... please, trust me."

I know exactly what he means as I lean slightly over my knees after rubbing my eye with my fingertips to rid of the slight dampness, "But that doesn't mean the feelings aren't there. It doesn't mean you can't know I've... I'd just... rather you know. Don't need you to do anything with them, don't even need you to say it back, just... that you're okay with it."

And that's what it is. He never let me know he's accepting of my feelings.

He stutters a second, then says, and it sounds as though his hand is palmed around his mouth over the phone, so it's extra private, " _I_ kissed _you_."

"Not after I said it."

"I said it to you first by kissing you, then, didn't I...?"

"... did you?"

"Is that what I just said?"

"It's just you and me and a phone. You don't need to double-speak."  
  
He sighs a bit, "I... it's... knowing nothing can come of it, of love, is exhausting. Don't keep bringing it up. I don't want to speak about it again."

My eyes shift abruptly, "Your feelings are current?"

"They never went away all of the way. But what are your feelings if not a reflection of my own, just delayed? They're not serious enough to... lead elsewhere, right? _Right_."  
  
"Whoa, hey," I tell him, and I put my right hand out to the air, to tell it to stop, somehow, "don't try to tell me what my feelings are. They are serious."

"They're not, though, are they? You going to break up with your girlfriend? No. No, you're not, because it's... it's... not that, is it? It's not quite that. Never quite that."

I'm devastated as I sit here, because... because is this what he's been telling himself for three and a half years? Because of me? Have I somehow stunted him so severely that he would think this way? Is it true? Yeah, right now, but that's because it's new, because it's complicated, and he is right to an extent: it's not who we are. That is, despite how deeply I feel for him, am I ready to give up what I've known of myself, mostly, for the majority of my life? No. But does that change what I feel for him? No. God, no. It doesn't. At all. But how do I say that, and if he's been here before, in these shoes--maybe I've rented them from him even--what can I say to him that he hasn't already talked himself down about or from in his own head? What feelings he may have had for me, outside of friendship, he's reasoned himself out of. I'm hurt for him. I never meant to hurt him by not returning his feelings back then the way he needed them returned. If only I had known how precious that bit of his heart was. So what love he has for me, now, it is not pure. It's tainted by years of adjusting his disposition. It is no wonder he's able to compartmentalize so well when it comes to our friendship--or, at this point, more-so a kinship.

"Congratulations on your newfound feelings. Excuse me for not being excited for you, as I've been here before."

"I'm sorry, I don't think you understand what I'm saying to you," I interrupt him, amazed by how blasé he is even over the phone. "My feelings with or towards anyone else have no impact on my feelings towards you. Next time I see you, these feelings are not going to have gone away. They are in full bloom. I am attracted to you. Emotionally. Physically." How to spell this out? "Romantically. Okay, so... go with that." Let's just put that out there, I mean, if that's what it's going to take. "If you're not feeling the same, then we are not in the same place, as grown men. You had feelings for me when you were a _teenager_. If you had feelings for me now as strongly as I have for you, you'd not be telling me nothing can come of them. I--I can assure you, if you want this, too, then something will come of it."

"You say that as though--"

"Harry, I love you--is that saying this correctly? You know I love you--so put aside what you know of how I already love you--hear me say, I guess... I want you."

"Isn't that something different entirely?"

"Jesus Christ," I whisper to him, absolutely stunned, my mouth now chapped, and I gape at the mountain towering in the distance over the closer peaks.

But then he stops pretending, and there is an anger in his tone, a liberation of accusation, "You wait until I'm finally in a relationship, Louis, for the _first time in five years_ \--I finally moved on, and now you're saying... what? _What?_  You want to be with me?"

My mouth is frozen.

"Exactly, see, exactly," he says, and he's back to his monotone. "You are never going to be able to get... _there_. Please, can we not do this! Please? Please. I'm... done."

I tell him, "okay," because that's what I want for him. To hear his anguish over the phone, for the first time, in quiet relation to unrequited feelings for me, is painful. "Seeing you happy is more important than anything else, and you're happy, right?"

" _I am_ ," he expresses, like he just so desperately wants me to understand him, how important it is. But the way he says it is like: I'm finally free of you. I fear that's exactly what it is.

Congratulations?

What am I to do, then? But it's nothing I can ask him. I've done enough to him, so, somehow, I manage, "Then I guess we're done here, at least at a crossroads. Thank-you for... chatting with me on it." All business-like, suddenly--meanwhile I have been trying to light the cigarette sticking out of the corner of my mouth for about fifteen seconds unsuccessfully--because I can barely manage to inhale, the cigarette is shaking, and my thumb keeps involuntarily slipping off the lighter. It only occurs to me now that the cigarette is in my mouth, that I've been trying to light it. I've been too busy concentrating on my tone, on this conversation and his feelings, going forward, to concentrate on actually getting this FUCKING cigarette lit. I finally get it and inhale, deeply, for like five long seconds, hold it for two, then let out. "You don't need to build your solo career on the backs of people who've never done anything but want the best for you and to see you succeed. Text Liam and Niall that you'll be sure this won't happen again."

"Noted."

"Goodnight."

"You going to be all right?"

 _No_? "Goodnight, Harry."

"We can have a chat still. I'm not sure ending the call like this would be wise." He's right; he's got some forethought, this one.

"How's your mum?"

"Great," and he launches into a whole story while I puff on my cigarette. When he's done, I inquire about his sister, his step-dad, and his plans for the next weeks leading up to his birthday.

The entire time he's speaking, I trace the stars with my eyes, stringing together imaginary constellations in the shapes of the way he makes me feel and in relation to the rest of my life as I've known it.

It's unplottable. Unknowable. Whatever shapes my star-stringing has created are their own secrets, just for me and the sky.

"... you're not listening to me."

"No. Sorry, lad," I so quietly admit, coming back out of my trance just in time to hear the lingering inquiry. "I should get going."

"Come on," he breathes into the phone, and I can hear that he's stressed out.

"It's not for you to deal with," I return to him, having thought I'd done an all right job of containing bits of sniffles. Guess not. "Keep safe. Enjoy your time. We'll catch up another time, yeah? Yeah, yeah, we will."

"Lou, I don't want to hang up like this."

"No, no, everything's good, lad, yeah. Promise, everything is fine," I try to soothe his nerves and wind up lying straight to him. "I'll be all right. I always manage, don't I?" _Don't I?_ "Goodnight."

I pull the phone from my hear, and I hear him say something--but... I've nothing left. I hang up and then hang my head over my knees, hands locked behind my neck.

What the fuck am I going to do?

I am literally sick to my stomach, the nausea suddenly presenting itself, and for a moment, as I sit back up straight, I deep breathe. Where do I go from here? Inside to smoke another joint and fuck my girlfriend? That's what I've been doing. That's become my hobby. Part of me wishes I could freeze time and just stay here until I figure out how to feel, but it's quite frigid at the moment. As hurt as I am inside, I am so numb from the cold outside that my body may have been having something of a stabilizing affect on the rest of me. Making sense of all of this, of that phone call, is going to take up my night. If I manage to sleep, upon waking I know what will already be on my mind. I've told Harry--another male, that is--that I've not just strong feelings for him, but I love him. He says his feelings never went away, but if it were love, wouldn't... wouldn't this be a good thing, for me to say it back? But it wasn't like that at all. And the last thing I ever want to do, especially now, is drag him away from happiness, away from anything that's going to keep him unburdened. I took enough of his time before, didn't I? I've taken his time, haven't I?

Haven't I?

Terribly-feeling, I hold my chest with both hands, give myself a few moments, then head back for the chalet with my head down and my hood up. I tighten the strings under my chin so my face is nearly completely hidden and bury my hands in my heavy down-coat pockets. I take the stone stairs up, to get back to my chalet entrance, two-at-a-time. Entering, despite being grateful for the warm burst of air and the usually addictive, welcoming, innocent chatter of friends, I realize that nothing could possibly take away the knot in my chest. It's physical, like I swallowed a huge spoonful of peanut butter that doesn't want to go down. I think, as my coat comes off, that maybe it'll help.

Once it's hung up, the lump is more prevalent, and as I'm heading towards the kitchen, my hands lightly find my girlfriend's sides, I peck the back of her head. As her happy face falters at the sight of my own, immediately morphing into worry, "I'm fine," manages to quickly jump from my lips nearly to her own, but last minute something happens and my face goes slightly right. I peck her cheek instead. "I'm going to bed."

"Oh," she says, and she grabs my wrist to stop me, "did I do something?"

"No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. I've just had a phone call, but I don't want to talk about it. I need some time." It's best I not utter anymore lies this evening.

"I'll come in in awhile?"

"No rush," I say, already on the creaky old wood steps on the way up to my small master suite.

Once I'm in bed, in my pajamas, which consist of soft flannel pants and a bulky, warm, two-sizes-too-large sweater, the tear factory kicks into gear, and even I groan at it.

I've cried more in the last two weeks than I feel like I have in a year combined. My insides are so confused, all torn up, all... freshly shaken up. Raw. Unrelenting.

I'd do anything for the scent of lemons, and the thought spurs angst and frustration all over again. A fresh wave of tears breaks right through my closed eyes.

The kiss, he'd said, was _good_.

What've I done in my life to have been an active participant in the best kiss of my life to have it then deemed, in comparison to someone's kiss of my love, just... _good_?

Sandwiches are _good_. _Breakfast-in-bed_ is good. _Slippers_ are _good._

His mouth, on mine, for that kiss? "Good" _weeps_ because it has never known that amount of love in all of its time. How could it know? I'd never known such magic. Ever.

Do I let this go? Do I bury these feelings like he suggests? Put it quiet and move on? That would be easiest, it would seem. But then, there is that other option, which is to keep that love right where it is and take it to him full-force, so he understands that it's not about what can "come of it" or how it would fit into a public narrative. It's about him. It's about me. It can be quiet. It can be what it is. But he has to know that he's allowed to go there. He has to know! So, do I do it? Do I let it fizzle out and suffer through the most of this, this winter, or do I try to spark a flame in him? Do I try to rekindle his affections?

At least, if that's even possible, whether or not it works... don't I at least need to try, so I never have to _wonder?_  So _he_ never has to wonder, "what if?"

The next morning I wake, I put on my smile, I take my pictures, I go to the airport, and I head back to London with a group of friends to pad my sorrow. On the taxi back to my flat, I have the car stop, kiss my girlfriend goodbye, and I hope right out. She's confused, but she's got her girlfriend with her, so I know they'll be fine. I don't offer an excuse, I don't offer a further word, just close the door and move for the cabby's window. He rolls it down, and I hand him my fare, as well as theirs. In the middle of traffic, basically, there's no further time to question me about hopping out or what I'm doing. I adjust my bags over my shoulders as I hop up onto the side-street, adjusting my beanie over my head, and I head into the flower-shop I'd been waiting for about ten minutes to get close to. I've been here before--they know me well! And down my bags go by the door, grateful that the small shop is empty otherwise than the woman and her toddler who had just walked out when I'd been walking in.

"Louis!" The little old man exclaims, his accent thicker than Niall's and three times as deep as Harry's, somehow. He's surprised but happy to see me--and me him! He claps, even. "What can I do for you?"

I slide to the counter, my bags over in the corner, and spread both of my hands out on the counter, "I need something real special, George. Have you got something special?"

"How special are we talking?" He asks, hushing his voice and leaning over the high counter as if we're discussing day-trades or contraband. "Maybe I got something you want. Tell me, what do you want these flowers to say?"

"I want them to say: _you're absolutely fucked; I'm going to ruin your life._ Have you got anything for that?" I fold my hands under my chin, squinting at him. "And I mean _really_ fucked, George."

For merely a moment is he surprised, but then he does that smirk, rubs his thumb through his thick beard, and then raises a thumb, "I think I've got you, my boy."

"You always have, George; you always have, haven't you?" Because it's true. He's done countless arrangements for me--personal, business, and for charity functions. He motions me back behind the counter, so I push through the wood gate, grabbing my bags, and follow him back into his shop, where I've been before a few times to approve of arrangements or to hide when I'm out and about and don't want to be seen--which surely happens, at times, even if I am a cheery soldier. I don't know how florists do it, dealing with the brilliance of all of the colors, keeping these things all alive, bringing in shipments every day. There's so many flowers stored in refrigerators back here that I can't believe it. It's an entire garden of expression waiting to be crafted, all in this tiny shop.

He goes and pulls out a little of this, a little of that, and then these brilliant violet flowers that look sharp and... actually, they are perfect. He tells me the Latin name--like I will ever remember that--but I am too busy smelling the ingredients of the flower potion, basically, he's making. The smell startles me, and I look to him with lifted eyebrows, "Does this smell a little like lime? Lemon?"

"You have a good sniffer," he tells me, and he comes right in and pinches my nose. I let him, because I couldn't not. "What do you think?"

"They're more perfect than you could possibly know."

"Write out a card, then," he says, and motions me to some cards to choose from, all sitting in stock boxes nearby. "Drop an address."

"Need you to deliver this yourself, George, if possible?"

"A matter of the heart, then?"

I glance over, then, and watch him work on another arrangement, awed by his craft, and decide I've no secrets from George and his flower shop, "A matter, anyway."

"Unrequited?"

"George, my boy, my _boy_! The heart wants what it wants."

"Ah," he says, like he understands my entire existence. I can't help my laugh, then my sigh, as I look down at the blank card, pen in hand, and then the tip goes down.

 _I'll wait._  
_\- Lou_

George, of course, has to take the piss out of it completely, and smiles, though hardly dismissive of the attempt, "Try harder."

I glance down, "This took a lot of thought, George!"

He smiles, reads it over, this time, more seriously, then drops it back down on the table, "Don't think so hard, then." And he goes back to his arrangement.

I grab another card and lean down over the old wooden butcher-block table, thinking about how to both torture and flatter Harry at the same time, a perfect combo.

"Dear boy," he prompts, after I write and erase three different attempts and bang my head on the table, "what are you trying to say, _really_?"

"That I intend to ruin his life," I mean, it's George. George doesn't care. George barely even blinks about it. George doesn't give a fuck.

"Write that, then."

"George," I shake my head, "that's just want I want him to know, not what I want him to feel. _Get it_?"

"You youths, with your wild ideas of what love should be," he sighs. "If he were standing here, the two of you, what would you want him to know? Write that. Trust me. Go on. Write."

_Your bunny socks are hideous._

George reads it, then looks straight at me, and I finally crack a smile and toss it at him, having just been kidding. But it's fun to fuck with him. He's fun to amuse.

"How about this?" I ask him eventually, having put the pencil back in its container and abandoned my other drafts, and walk it across the room to where he's working now.

He takes it, looks down at the small writing over his glasses, then looks up at me with approval, "That'll do. That'll do."

_In time, love._


	8. Sundays & Cupcakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank-you for the kind comments and kudos! :)

There are some times when you just KNOW something is going to work, when you just KNOW things are too good to be true, everything has fallen into place, and you're flying real smooth--waiting for everything to come apart at the seams, of course, but for those brief fleeting moments of sustained joy... priceless, right? That is how the last twenty-four hours or so have unfolded, and I couldn't be more stoked about it. I have to admit, I was a slight bit nervous standing at Harry's doorstep again, but when he opened it he barely gave me any time at all to say anything. He was ready to go, simple knee-length black jacket, black jeans, even black sunglasses, with his hair pulled back, and closed the door breathlessly behind him, hand wrapped around the front door handle, like he'd just gotten caught doing something.

All that dramatic effect for my benefit, of course, to break the tension at the first moment.

It was a good idea, because all-but-too suddenly, there I was, staring at one of my best-mates in an unexpected new way as he flounced off of his first front step and turned in my direction so we were basically even, fascinated by the abrupt sight of his petal pink mouth from the new angle and the sharp cut of his jaw. Was it always so? It was probably strategic to have the sunglasses on, too, as when he finally did take his sunglasses off, after we snuck into a small shop off a back alley for breakfast in a place owned by people so old and uninterested in anything pop-culture that they wouldn't know us from dirt, I barely noticed. But I still noticed, because it brought everything all roaring back.

He thinks he's so smooth, sitting there with his back to the window in this little old restaurant, holding the menu against the table with his chest while he cracks his knuckles behind it. We haven't spoken in at least five minutes. We've not spoken much about anything at all. We've laughed a lot, though, sort of at the most random things--the amount of red-lights we hit on the way, prolonging our quiet separate tensions about the last time we were in a car together, the way he almost tripped over nothing in the cement, and when he anxiously over locked his car about ten times. When we have spoken, it's been really small, silly, innocently friendly stuff.

"More tea?"

I look up to the right and nod, uncharacteristically quiet about it, and watch as our waitress takes my cup away, then Harry's, as well. I already know what I want, but he doesn't seem to know what he's in the mood for, at least that's what he's said three times. I offered a suggestion or two, soon realizing that any help I could provide to him about meal choices is highly unhelpful. I suppose this is the most quiet we've been around each other in ages. Even at our worst, there was always something to go on, even a few snips at each other had often sufficed.

I don't think either of us knows where to actually go from here, now that there are new truths in our relationship. The bottom of my chest still tickles and warms over when I think about having kissed him. I even get a giddiness out of it, which is a strange thing since rarely does that happen anymore. Perhaps I treasure it more now that it has happened. To think that now, at twenty-four, I can feel something so innocently stupid, so grade-school... a heartwarming realization, really, I think, as my palm starts to slide across the table. He doesn't look up at it, but it spurs a low hum out of him, getting his attention.

"I don't know what I'm feeling for," he repeats, pinching the corners of his mouth with his right hand.

I lift my right index fingertip up, as I notice the waitress coming back, then drop it heavily down over his menu, bringing it back down onto the table-top. I pull it in my direction, away from him, as she sets down our new tea.

I hand her my laminated sheet menu and Harry's together, offering a light close-lipped smile, "Two orders of waffles with maple syrup and breakfast sausages, please. You can leave the fruit off of mine, though," and she laughs. As she leaves, she also takes Harry's interested attention. "Want her number, then?"

He leans up against the table, eyes back on me, with a happy, rare smile, teeth and all, and replies to me by saying absolutely nothing, trying to unnerve me.

I fold my arms, too, on the table in front of me, around my tea-cup, imitating him.

"I've had some allergies since receiving your flowers."

"I mean, of course you would say that." He's all smiles into the back of his hand. "And it's probably true, lad, isn't it?" I mourn at him, openly. "That's so you, isn't it?" To try to take me down to build me back up. "What do you have for me?" I sip on my tea expectantly, endeared to what I can see not-so-secretly happening; I can see his motivation here!

He smiles harder, dimples galore, with lifted eyebrows--he tries not to laugh like this anymore, something I noticed a long time ago, but when he does, it's perfect. His laughing face never changed with the rest of his bone structure--when he laughs, he still looks like a baby-faced sixteen year old, remnants of a past that I am sentimentally attached to, "How do I get your number?"

"I mean," I say, and push back a bit, dragging my one brave finger along the table, eyes lowered to it, "I think you've got it already. I hope--I hope! Otherwise _,_ uh, I've been having some real heavy phone conversations with your doppelganger."

His elbow is on the table, and he's leaned into his fist, now, with his cheek comfortably resting there, as he pulls his tea-bag out of his cup with his other hand, eyes down. He's sobering up a bit, but he's not hesitant. He was the one who suggested we get out of either of our normal environments and get out to breakfast. I almost hadn't believed it--walking around in bright buzzy London Sunday morning? What a risk? I'd had a real conversation with myself before confirming that it sounded like a good idea over text. This is a first step, I think, is the point, just as walking around as the friends we are. I hadn't wanted to give him any reason to doubt me if I had turned him down based on what people who see us might "think."

"Tell me about George."

George? Who George? What George? I think of all of the people named George I know and how Harry would be related to--oh! Florist George. I'm immediately hot in the face.

Harry, never having even looked up at me after asking, laughs a quiet and confident chuckle into his tea as he lifts it, having cornered me perfectly, "Go on..."

"Whatever he's said to you, I can guarantee it is one-hundred percent, undeniably, absolutely..." A long sip of tea, longer than any sip of tea I've ever taken, I swear, "false."

"You're killing me, Lou," he laughs, having been testing my reaction, it is perfectly clear. "What a sweet guy, huh?"

"The sweetest," I agreed, my voice softening and finally loosening up, sobering to the situation, as well, now that he seems comfortable with it.

"I invited him in and offered him a cup. We had a good chat."

"My God, I just... you're... really too much... you're too you, Harry," there's basically love pouring out of my mouth, my shoulders soft, and I sigh about it. "I love it."

He looks right up at me, green eyes wide but not overly so. There's a small smile on his mouth after about five seconds, like he's amazed, "Get a _grip_ , would ya?"

I rub my face with both hands and laugh outright, plopping both of my elbows down on the table with a clank of the silver utensils, peeking at him through my fingers, "Why are you always so pleased with yourself?" I come back at him with, unable to let his expression go. He knows how to play me so well. He sucks at it with most other people, but man, it's like he can read me when he wants to. It's embarrassing, because he's really the only person who has access this way. Those core people we were back then, when we met, still remain, despite how much has changed. "Did you like them?"

"Enough to sit and have a cup with a strange little old man who deems you very important," he laughs, so chill, now, and still leaned up against the table, engaged. "You told him. That's why we're here. You _told_ a little old man." He's right. I've told George. I hadn't thought not to. The look on his face says everything I didn't even know I wanted him to feel, but he's feeling it, and it's so close to me. He wears his expressions so well when we're alone, his heart right out on his sleeve like I don't know anyone else can do. He can be real sarcastic and put one of those masks on to cover every and anything about how he's really feeling, until something like this happens.

"He wouldn't tell. It's hardly anything bad, is it?"

"Isn't this is how it would always be?" He asks, cheek back to his fist, and we're just staring at each other a bit, between small bits of silence and thought. "Questioning?"

"I don't know," I admit, dazed on him. "Why are we here--I mean, aside from George? If you've no interest, if you're not, or if you don't want to talk about it... I'd rather you just tell me outright. That way, we can move on--oh, or is... is that the point of this?"

Maybe some part of me expects him to be conflicted, to want to think about this, but his answer is nearly immediate, and it has nothing to do with my nervy voice, "It's amazing, sitting here right now. Just, like, watching you," he says, painting a picture, for me, and moving me out of my own perspective, "bite your nails. Over-thinking. I didn't know you were such a studious hobbyist of acyclic table-tops--nice silver flecks, though, right, like..." and he's looking down at the table-top, as if trying to make me feel better about my intense staring down at the table-top rather than keeping eye-contact with him longer than five seconds. His teasing is so soft, just putting it out there. "You're _nervous_."

The way he says it as always, slow, but also now full of awe, his mouth wrapping around the last of the word in that way his Cheshire upbringing allows, so cautious about it like he's stroking my nerves himself...

I try to appear appalled--like I said, I try. I can't even deliver, though. I drop the attempt before my mouth opens or my face contorts, and just laugh, instead, and pull my thumb from my mouth. He's right, I've been nervously fidgeting or getting in a bitten nail probably every thirty seconds. This means he's watching me, too, looking for things different of me. I confirm a nod to him, that I'm nervous, again falling uncharacteristically silent in the moment, not sure I have it in me to say so aloud. I try to brave a look up at him, and I get it, this time, just happy Harry eyes, no pretense behind them or his expression.

"Remember when we could sit at breakfast and talk about anything, non-stop?" I laugh. "Like... two weeks ago, even?"

"What was the thought behind telling me over the phone? I gotta know."

"Really, just right out there with it? Okay? Uh, well... excuse me, it had to be done that way in order for me to survive after the deed was done, Harry, you know! I don't know; I never planned to tell you, least of all that way... that moment... that day... or ever. Have some respect for my courage, huh?"

His teeth are back, and his dimples, too, and he just stares at me, and I'm amazed because I dare to return it.

He's really, well... _vibing_ right now--I can feel it! I can see it! I think I might die, because I have never been here before, let alone with a man. My ears hurt about it. My chest, too. I have no idea what he's thinking or how he feels. He hasn't let me in on any of that. One of us is being unbelievably open, here, which is extremely nerve-wracking. I'd decided to do my best to be this way when I'd gotten into my car this morning to head to his place. This is sort of _it,_  my one shot at trying to get him to open up back to me, which probably isn't going to be easy considering I all-but-stomped on his heart a couple of years ago. Is that overstating the reality? Yeah, probably. Harry, of all people, is not so simple. And I have never expected him to be about this.

For all I know, this is gearing up for him to just sit down, talk it out with me, assure me the feelings are not returned "to that extent," and put me on my way.

I've no idea what to expect.

"About _that_..." I say, realizing, and walk two of my fingers in his direction on the table, and when his eyes flicker to them, they run back to me.

He smiles harder and scrubs at the right corner of his mouth with his thumb, entertained entirely, which is a nice change, "Are you about to take it back?"

"You've got a lot of nerve trying to troll me about this. I could never take it back, because that would be _terribly_ unjust."

"You're really there."

"I think?" I jokingly ask, knowing what he's hinting at but touching my chest with both hands to make sure I'm physically present, then digress to his soft eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

He sits up and away from the table, now, giving some small nod as he really takes it in, the fact that I love him, the fact that it's a real thing, that we're sitting here, "Is there any part of you that wants to take it back?"

"No. No, Harry, it's surprisingly simple: I love you."

I hold eye-contact for the first time since we sat down, since the first time since I told him, and see the effects of my efforts, of pushing past my nerves, hit their target.

The words strike him. His entire face goes blank. There's nothing there, at first, and then just a weak raise of one eyebrow, and now he's the table-top expert again, studying so importantly, and has the gall to inquire, "Do you think those flecks are more gold or more silver?"

"Is that so? Why don't you go sit in front of the fire and ponder about it a bit?"

He looks as wildly as he possibly can to the fireplace twenty feet away and counters, "Why don't you go stand a little too close to it!?"

"First you invite me to jump out a window, and now you want me to fall into a fire? My, I had no _idea_... I mean, should I support your... _proclivities_? I _guess_."

The waitress is at our table, putting down our plates, and suddenly we're both disengaged because the conversation just cemented itself, and now he has to adjust. Does he still feel that way about me? Is it all old-news for him? Maybe he isn't sure, but I don't want or even think about giving him a time frame. After all, me telling him that these feelings are here wasn't an invitation to something. It wasn't an invitation to start something. I don't need validation from him for my feelings, but it's nice, all the same, to sit here, so near to him, and be the center of his universe. His eyes, his attention, are never far from me. Truly, they never have been. He surely hasn't set me straight about it or dropped any hints that this is simply inconvenient to him right now, which I know that it actually is.

I want him to know that this will never change, that my love for him, be it romantic or as a life-long friend, as a non-blood brother, even, is eternal. He is my Harry. He _is_.

Distances from him, tensions with him, even silently warring with him... it has never, and will never change, that he is there to do those things with.

"Do you want to come back to mine and watch a movie?"

"A good plan," I agree, so easily, after my first bite of my waffle, having waited for him to dig in first, "but we should walk around for something, yeah? Maybe coffee, for sure gets snacks--copious amounts."

All he does is stuff a huge piece of waffle in his mouth and close around it with a smile, and says, mouth full, and my stomach hurts from the ease he's gifted me, "Dunno how to proceed, Lou."

"Me either," I assure. "I've no fucking idea. No idea. I know you're with someone. And me, too. I think I just needed you to know."

His fork aims at me and circles in the air once, and he cocks an eyebrow, "That does put it on me, though, doesn't it?"

"That's not why I told you. I don't want anything from you. But you deserved the truth. And, I guess, I feel like I did, too. You mean so much to me, lad."

"Have you known for awhile?"

"No," I laugh. "Like three months, maybe. I couldn't skirt it anymore. I miss your face a little."

"It's hideous, though," he says, and I know he truly believes that, sometimes, which is the worst. Looks at me, delivers that line like it's the only truth he knows.

I stop chewing, outright, staring at him as he eats, eyes down, and then abruptly reach over, dab my finger in his whipped cream on his waffle, and smear it on his cheek.

"Louis!" It's all love, his outrage brilliant, and he's straight-up mad about it, and he reaches over the table with a threatening fork. "You're such a dick!"

"No, you're the dick! Like, I literally tell you I love you, and in that same conversation you have to try to drop your self-worth down. I _hate_ the way you talk about yourself. It's always been that way. You never concentrate on what good things people say about you. It's a hundred people who adore you, and the one person who has a comment about not liking your hair or something, and that's all you focus on. You do this a lot," I argue with him, jumping on it, because he's going to defend himself. It hurts, though, that he's been internalizing this kind of thing. Always has--he pretends he's above it, now, that he's just the phoenix from the ashes. Yeah, hint? He's not there yet. "You are you, Harry, and that's so _striking,_ like... special. I love the way your face gets when you laugh--like, laugh like you really want. I love that face. I literally love how stupid your face looks. And it is so stupid, you're right. It’s hideously stupid." He's so happy, and I've got two wadded up napkins coming my way. "It's just delightful and stupid, and I'm in love."

At first, he had gone to pretend I was taking it all the wrong way, but now he's quietly sitting there, fork in hand, no longer chewing. He's peering at me with a slightly tilted head. The smallest of eyebrows raise at me, too, "You're in love?"

" _What_?"

"You're _in love_?" His fork is down.

Did he... does he not... get... why we're here? The flowers? Does he not understand that me saying "I love you" meant what I mean it to mean? What the _fuck_?

My voice is strangled a moment in sheer confusion, but then I whisper, because, no matter what he thinks, I'm not going to lie, "With you, Harry?"

"And it's me you feel that way about?"

"Um," I awkwardly laugh at him, but it gets one out of him, too, and I can finally see that his upper cheekbones are bright pink, "yes?"

We sit in silence for the rest of breakfast while we eat. He frequently looks up at me, then away. Never a word.

"More tea?" I ask him, seeing the waitress eying us after sometime, well after we've both finished our plates off.

"Oh, no," he realizes, looking back at me from the window over his shoulder. He clears his throat. "Still want to walk?"

"I'm up for it if you are." I give the waitress a lift of my right hand's index finger, since she's watching, for the check. When she goes for it, my eyes move back across from me, to the way Harry's folded up, having been rubbing at his chin or cheek with the back of his right hand--a nervous tick. We've all got them. I've been sitting back against my booth for the better part of ten minutes, a foot between myself and the table, trying to understand what happened. There's NO WAY he didn't know that me saying that I had feelings for him, or loved him, was not in a romantic sense. To be so startled by those words--"in love"--had also taken me out of the moment. Briefly it caused me temporary panic, too, until I questioned why I was reacting that way. What have I got to lose? Nothing. Him? A lot more. "All right? Do you not want to?"

"You know, people will see us." His thumb motions to the window. "There's a steady presence."

I sigh a bit. This isn't my decision, actually. It's his, "There's a bakery at the end of the row."

"All right," he says, in a roundabout way, meaning that if I'm okay with it, he's okay with it. "I'm gonna go to the loo."

"Yeah, I'll get the check," I agree, easily, as he slides out of the booth, tugging his loose black sweater down a bit. He shuffles at first as he walks, almost at a jog, elbows bent, but then slows, his long legs guiding him across the old wood floors. I watch the expressions on the people at the tables he passes, but there's no acknowledgment. No one is looking for him here. He's just another guy walking by. I like him that way. I like him being just a guy, walking by. I like it when he does that. Walks. Yeah, I like that. I almost want to tell him so, since he's not that far away yet. With him being so far away, I can finally breathe freely. I've been so tense, so anxious.

It's like he hears me, though, because he turns and looks over his shoulder, slowing near the fire, and pretends to throw himself into it, a huge smile on his face.

My head is back, and I can't help my happy laugh, my eyes welling with unexpected happy tears, and when they're blurrily back on him, my cheeks scrunched with my hands over them, he's already gone and disappeared behind a partition. The grossest thing happens, though, as I look down and realize my arms are basically wrapped around my own body now. How long have I been this way and why does it feel this way? Have I been staring at him, hugging myself, since I finished breakfast? How embarrassing! Geez! I grimace about it, even, and glance at my reflection in the mirror--just as I expected, a mix of utmost horror and infinite happiness... the entirety of which basically sums up the highs and lows of my relationship with Harry, Monster-Harry, and Lemon-Harry.

The waitress appears in my mirage, so I turn away from the reflection and take the check. I've got enough cash, which I prefer to pay with anyway. I put down the cash and finish the last of my lukewarm tea. When Harry's back, shortly thereafter, he grabs his coat right up and follows me out the front doors after we both casually wave goodbye and say thanks to our waitress. This is different, because abruptly we're standing right outside on a rather lively street, rather than walking along the back side-streets and into the side-door we'd entered the little shop in.

It's so sunny, bright, and smells amazing.

I shove my hands into my pockets, smiling against the sliver of sunlight, and turn my face to the right, to him, with a closed right eye, "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he agrees, glances at me only briefly with eyes so light from the sun that my stomach drops out, before he lowers his sunglasses. "So, this bakery..."

"This way, I saw it when we were driving in," and I'm already walking, leading. I think that's sort of how it's always been with Harry when we're somewhere. Not that he can't find his way around, but just, in this situation, we revert into certain way of being. I lead, so he doesn't have to. I'd really rather, wouldn't I? I hurry up my pace, seeing a coffee shop up nearby, too. He agrees and we get there in no time, order, grab our coffees and we're back out the door, just in time to come face-to-face with a girl who clearly knows who we both are. There's this vague "you look familiar, like a friend but not a friend" recognition on her face, and only once we've all awkwardly walked around each other in the open door-way do I look back, just as she does, and watch the realization pass over her. I give her a nod hello about it, too.

Harry's unaffected, already deep into his coffee, his free hand in his pocket, and he supposes, "I don't know, like... I could go for a muffin. Or I could go for a cupcake."

"Cupcake. Cupcakes for sure," I offer. "No contest."

"Yeah," he says, "that sounds about right. I wonder if they've got some Red Velvet for you."

"I was just wondering the same!"

"No, _you_?" He laughs, so at ease. "You said you're heading to the States?"

"Yeah," I admit, eyes heavily on him. I won't tell him that if he wants me to stay, I'll stay. But he said he didn't want that pressure on him. I refuse to go against that. "There are things to take care of. The baby's coming, I've got loose ends on paper-work with my place there. I'll spend a couple of days in Chicago first."

"I'll come visit soon," he offers, and I know his place in LA isn't too far from where my soon-to-be home is. "Good?"

"I'd be pretty offended if you didn't."

"What’s, uh... going on with your girlfriend?" On one hand: wow. On the other hand: wow.

I look to him, in silence, after watching the way our feet have somehow fallen into the same rhythm and have stayed in-sync for minutes now.

He looks back to me, behind the black sunglasses.

I don't have an answer.

"I'm not _so_ serious with her," he offers quietly, of his own situation, while I'm trying to figure out the answer, myself. "If that... matters to you."

"I don't know where that information puts us either."

"How in love with me are you, exactly?" He asks it like it's a question on a test. "A scale of one to ten, like... like, you've got some puppy-love, a _four_?"

"Is that what you got out of that kiss? Puppy love? Yikes,” I grimace, pulling a face, “I must need work."

"No!" He quickly laughs in that way he does, his hand out and in front of me to assure that is not what he could have possibly meant. " _No_." This time, he's said it more calmly. "No, you don't. It was... good."

"Yes, about _that_ ," I say, and it's clear as day to me that our arms and shoulders are touching as we walk. " _Good_? It was a good, puppy-love kiss? Ouch, mate."

And I'm not even kidding! Ouch! A total blow!

"I don't want you to know how I really feel, Lou," he decides to whisper about it, maybe what's been his motto towards me for three and a half years. "It was good."

I get it, I do, so I don't push. I appreciate that he put it out there that he may have very well enjoyed it immensely but is too unsure, too fragile towards me, still, to say, "At least my girlfriend can let me know when I've kissed her well and _good_ , so I suppose that's _what's going on there_ ," and it's a light joke that makes him laugh and shake his head, as if to agree that he'd _asked_ for that. He's a couple of inches ahead of me, though our arms are still touching. Somehow I've wound up slowing a bit, but I like where I find myself, my arm behind his, guiding his from behind. I'd never quite considered this--all of this time, taking the lead? What if what I really want to do is lead this way, from quietly behind him, so when he needs me, he can see me, but doesn't have to submit to falling back into the same old roles as who we were years ago? Because I know that is part of the problem; he has changed so much from that person.

I should let him know how truly I admire who he is, the lovable asshole.

"Four is puppy love?" I ask, thoughtfully, getting back on that train of-thought. "I would have thought puppy-love was a two, a three?"

"You tell me."

"What's the scale, though, mate? Like," I hold up only one finger, "one is "holding-hands-gives-me-butterflies" love?"

As we walk, my pinky jumps the gun, and my pulse races, though it's all in cheeky fun--most of it, anyway--and nudges into the back of his palm.

He looks right at me.

Damn, like... that was an intimate and either fortunately or unfortunately timed brush of the back of my fingers against the sensitive inside of his palm.

I stare back at him.

It really backfired. I've forgotten how to speak, my throat unexpectedly swollen. It had been meant to be playful, but in reality... anything but!

My pulse is racing, and under the collars of my blue coat, I'm hot and reeling, and I feel as though I've got caffeine high--or--or--or like I just drank 2 Monsters.

All of the sudden, his left hand is coming up, on his other side, with his coffee in it, and he's pushing his sunglasses up.

Harry full-on stops, right there, in the middle of the empty sidewalk.

I laugh, nervously, and hang my head about three times, trying to think of something to say while he sizes me up. I twist about it, squinting, but then return his stare.

"You definitely just flirted with me!" He exclaims, wildly, like he can't BELIEVE this, and he's laughing so hard about it, his hand now wide open and palming his buttoned pea-coat torso.

"Fuck you. Fuck _right_ off!" I protest, and I'm walking again. "Go fall off the curb, won't you? Whatever, I'll see you in ten years! Nice knowing you."

He's behind me and laughing, like a baby deer and I hate it, and he even circles around me until he's walking backwards, our eyes happily together.

I can't help my smile, lips tightly closed, and I can see that he's all right with the sight of me walking with the sun in my face, because he's hooked in my eyes.

"What's two, then?" He smirks, sliding his sunglasses back down to soften the blow his eye-contact has.. a true and too-intense effect right now, honestly.

" _No_ ," I refuse him and sidestep him, with a triumphant laugh, right towards the steps of the cupcake shop, up, and in, with him right behind.

He grabs my shoulders, lightly, teasingly, and inside all I do is shrivel up with more love, more anxiety, more disbelief that I feel as I do. Especially when he lets go. There are three other people in the shop, looking down into the display cases at the arrangement of colorful and creative cupcakes. We stay back, since it'll probably be a couple of minutes before we get anything, and I survey the menu, which is written on the chalkboard wall that covers the entire back wall behind the counter. It's all written in a really aesthetically-pleasing way. A lot of creativity and time went into it all. The lemon cupcakes, for instance, have well-drawn yellow chalk-lemons beside its label.

Considering there is a lemon monster emoting and pulsating powdery, wonderful, classic lemons at me from behind and over my shoulder, I naturally first noticed those.

" _Lemon cupcakes_ ," he hums. "Who would have thought?"

I tightly close my lips to mute all reaction.

He's all into it, too, and I realize he's content to watch it all happen, because he laughs about it, so smug and entitled, now, to all of my thoughts on lemons, "You're in deep."

"My God, mate, you don't have to remind me of how fucked up this is," I flat-out grumble, turning slightly to the left to look at him, my hands held in front of me. He's right fucking here, though, not having budged an inch, and nothing on his face moves but his eyes, which lower down and to the right, towards me, his mouth hovering right where it last left off, his teeth pulled over the bottom one. He's got his hands behind his back, and there's a newly intimate angle having surfaced, but it's cozy all the same. He's letting it happen, though, is the thing! This angle, his arm behind my shoulder, as he surveys the menu, is all new territory. It's an opening of a door, and the only thing that pulls me out of my stare at his mouth is a fresh blast of cold air getting sucked into the shop as that door opens and girly chatter grounds me solely.

"Hi," Harry just lightly smiles as one of the girls does a double take at him, and I realize he's literally blocked me from view, and he's soon with them, at the display cases.

Did he just...

That smooth motherfucker!

I watch with a dumb and happy smile, sitting back against the window-ledge with my hands back in my pockets. We're definitely next, though, so I mosey on up to the counter and order a random assortment of cupcakes--simple vanilla, a few chocolates, and then others like bourbon with bacon, lavender and peach, and, of course, a couple of lemon cupcakes, and a couple of red velvets, too. I can probably take some with me on my flight to the States later, and cherish every bite. Never having even glanced, over, though, I hear Harry make mention of what he thinks looks good to the group of girls, so I casually and quietly throw that into the order, too.

The cashier at the counter sees clearly what's going on here. She's got eyes. And knows exactly who I am. And exactly who Harry is. She's got a look about her.

"Can we get a picture?" The girl asks Harry when we're outside of the shop, already taking her phone out.

Meanwhile, I've got two boxes of six huge cupcakes teasing my nose as I stand here, slightly turned away, glad she still hasn't realized that I'm here too. I’m more than okay with that.

Harry, right at my heels, struggles a moment, "Actually, no, not right now. Sorry. But here, will you take a cupcake instead?"

He opens the top box from me, grabs one of my lemon cupcakes, and gives it away, and my heart falls. That's perfectly fitting, isn't it?

But it appeases her and she nods, and she gets it: no picture. No picture _at all_ , please.

By the time we get back in the car, an entire box and a half of cupcakes is gone--that is, nine cupcakes! Gone! Gone! I peer down into the last cupcake box, sadly, once my seat-belt is on, and then look at him, too, disheartened.

His sunglasses are off, his jacket is off--mine too--and instead of saying anything, he reaches into the box, and then gently lifts one for me. I bite into it, fully aware that crumbs tumble down and frosting somehow manages to get on both my chin and my nose. But it's so good. It's better than I even thought it'd taste. I treasure my bite, even, as he watches me, sees I'm all right with it, and then pulls the cupcake away. He tugs down the wrapper a bit and bites into the cupcake, too, right where I'd last left it. He's got a little frosting on his nose, too, and leans in over the divider, elbow on it so easily, and comes in so close I stop chewing briefly, already feeling tickling before he even gets to my ear and cheek.

All he does his kiss, mouth at first barely touching but then it anchors down under my cheekbone and intimately close in front of my ear. His mouth situates itself there, cool from the air outside, and the pit of my stomach falls.

I close my eyes, head relaxed against the seat-rest, and swallow the last of my bite of lemon cupcake.

He kisses in front of my ear, then, nips a confident, soft brush just barely under my earlobe, and then he pulls away as quickly as he'd come in and takes another bite.

"That's... my cupcake," I pathetically murmur at him, as he goes to take another bite. That's my Harry cupcake. My _only_ Harry cupcake. And he's eating it. I want to eat it. I want to savor lemons as he's savoring them. He gets it and hands the rest of the cupcake back to me, so happily, as a peace-offering. If I were a gentleman, I might even suggest he finish it. But I'm not a gentleman at the moment, and that is not a normal cupcake for his consumption. It's practically cannibalism, lemon-Harry eating a lemon cupcake! Unfathomable! So I take it from him in a delicate way, from the safe bowl of his long elegant fingers, until it's back in my palm's appreciative possession.

I nibble a small bite, to savor and enjoy.

"You're a bit gorgeous."

I look at him, mid-bite, cradling the cupcake wrapper below my chin, devoted to the sugary existence with my _very_ being.

He looks back, and despite my current less-than-flattering position, still, he's genuine. There's no sarcasm, just... gentle appreciation and a small bit of adoration.

Did he...?

Am I...?

He turns the key in the ignition, though, with a flush on his face, and quickly puts the car in reverse, turning his attention to the rear-view mirrors with a not-so-secret croon.

It is with the greatest restraint of my life that I don't finish off these last bites of cupcake, rather enjoy tiny bites. Right when we pull up at his place, through the gate and parked, do I pop the last of it in my mouth. I'm so satisfied! This cupcake has been very pleasing! Therapeutic, even. One might say I got to get my cupcake AND eat it, too. How lucky can a guy get in this life, right? But even so, now there are only two cupcakes to last us the next couple of hours before I have to leave for the airport. Thinking of it, the reality of the situation returns, and I'm thoughtful about our objective relationship as I follow him into his home, again, and become immensely saturated in that smell of Harry. His house already has his smell, which I guess I never fully realized, before.

I breathe in so deeply that I could probably forget to stop inhaling and OD. Cause of death? Yeah, I'm all right with death by Harry intoxication. I'd never admit that outwardly.

Things unfold quickly and with ease. We're out of our outerwear, which we'd left on the coat hooks in the small entry, and lounging around on his one leather couch that faces the windows. The TV has come up out of the floor, and he's been silently searching for a movie to watch. He doesn't ask my opinion at all, but that's because he knows I don't care. It's so silly, how it's exactly the same as it used to be in these small ways I'd never really think of question. With anyone else, I'd want to be in control. Maybe that's what it is? Maybe there's something about him that balances me out, mellows me out, where things like that never seem to cross my mind.

I'm more concerned with just being in his company.

We've found a movie, and fifteen minutes in, five feet away from me, to my left, lounged out with his legs on the coffee table, he asks, "Will you get the cupcakes?"

"Oi, you've got legs."

"Where?"

"Literally... right... there," our eyes both land on his legs. He's such a nerd. I laugh, though, and give in, with a sigh, and go about dramatically lifting myself off of the couch. He smiles at me, head back on the couch, watching me the whole way, with a big cheesy forced smile. I grab a couple of his black and white striped napkins and the once-full box of cupcakes from his kitchen island and slide over to the back of the couch in my socks, collide with it, and drop the box of cupcakes down into his hands. I open up one of the napkins, as he's busy opening the box, and unfold its four folds until it's open all of the way, and for good measure, as I hop over the back of the couch, I ungracefully tuck a corner of it under the neck hem of his sweater.

He just laughs, and I plop right down next to him, this time, and pull my blanket over from the other side of the couch, "Ah, this is better, don't you think? I think."

"It is," he agrees, lifting the cupcake box up about two feet so I can throw the blanket out, and then he places the box on his lap and reopens. "Which do you want?"

"Peach. You can have the chocolate."

He turns his face right towards mine, to his right and to my left, with his dopey smile on his face, and he points at me with the knuckle of his index finger, "... _smitten_."

"For your information," I try, trying to keep at the smile trying to rip my face apart, "I'm off the chocolate, that's all. Doctor's orders, something like that."

The chocolate cupcake is on the napkin on my stomach, now, since I'm slouched down, and I look slightly up and to the left to him, eyes scrunched, beaming.

"I did eat most of your lemon cupcake," he digresses, gifting me the chocolate cupcake, the sweet lad he is. "Besides, I did pick the peach, didn't I?"

"Oh yeah," I remember, and I glance at him, briefly, as he takes a bite into it and gets white frosting on the corner of his mouth which he wipes away with his thumb. "Why peach?"

"Reminds me of you."

As sweet, as tender as the admission is, and I can see that he's being genuine, my restraint goes to the wayside, and I elbow him, my head back on the couch, and close my eyes as the laughter takes over, "You're my absolute favorite person, mate, ever. _Honest_."

"I'm all right," he smiles, too, his head back, eyes on me more than my eyes are on him, because I'm busy looking at my cupcake as I pull down a part of its wrapper.

"Did you just make that up?"

"It just got me thinking, you know? What are you like? You don't really smell like peaches, but... you're... a peach, you know... it's... you. Soft, a little fuzzy..." He leaves it at that, but we're both sure he could easily go somewhere else with it, especially when all of the sudden there's a lightning hot glance at my mouth.

"Harry," and I reach with my right hand across my chest, since he's to my left, and my fingers lightly graze the soft sweater material, definitely pulsating about it as soon as they hit the material and I feel the way it moves over Harry's skin beneath, " _such a charmer_." He's happy about it, so playful. It's amazing, we're just here, back where we used to be, sitting in the middle of his leather couch, with miles of space on either side of us, me tucked further back against the couch so my left arm his behind his right, mostly out of use because it's squished and keeping warm in the crack between our two cushions. We've got a blanket, and our feet are up on the coffee table, and we're... I mean, we're all right, aren't we? We're gonna be all right, whatever happens.

We go back to watching the movie, and because I am gifted the rarest of positions of power, tucked slightly behind him, I can discreetly peer.

So, God knows how much time has passed that I've watched the movie, sure, but from the angle of Harry's profile. My eyes frequently check in there.

I become fascinated with the way he eats his peach cupcake, like he would an orange, grasping it in his right hand between us, with that mouth of his never too far away.

Everything inside of me is hot and heavy, and though I try to shove it all down and away, it's never going to go away, is it? We're _thisclose_.

My phone starts vibrating on the table, so my eyes slip from the shelf of his mouth and the curve of his bottom lip to watch the phone approach the end of the table.

I don't want to budge, but if I don't budge to tend to my, well, life, it might become obvious that I am massively turned on and disgusting snug with that and where I am. The warmth under this blanket is fucking out of this world, and our bodies have naturally relaxed, so there's all of this natural, uncaring weight on each other. Feels so, so... good. I've got the scent of lemons, vanilla, and powder at my entire disposal. I haven't breathed in through my nose this much probably since I was a kid. The smell--like, I can take a deep breath of fresh air in but it feels like it stops at some point. But when I breathe in Harry's smell, it goes past that. It fills up these small little veins until my heart feels full and satisfied. It's so satisfying, honestly, and I've not been able to do this... I mean, ever.

I'm in absolute despair.

I have no idea what has actually been happening in the movie.

He's going to know all of that if I sit here another moment, unmoved by my life letting me know this is all too good to be true.

The three seconds I hesitate to move is more than enough.

Harry moves his left foot out to the left, without even looking away from the TV, and knocks the loudly buzzing phone from the table to the rug below.

"Sorry," says Monster Harry, with no remorse at all, and brings his foot back into the fray while my phone goes nearly silent, now buzzing quietly on the carpet.

Yeah, all right, so back to the movie--or, in my case, watching Harry eat a peach cupcake with the movie in the background.

Eventually I do focus in on the movie, once the cupcake is gone, but my right hand comes from my side, all at once, on a whim, under the blanket, and wraps around his upper arm, just a touch, just out of the blue, because I can! Because I can! Because I'm close. Because why not? It feels really good, to touch him, warm fingertips to his warmer, silkier skin. It's a bit dreamy, but the touch is powerful enough on its own without having to do anything else but exist, just but for this moment. I even let the tension in my neck go, which takes my face further from Harry's in order to rest back more fully against the cool leather of the couch. The truth is, this feels unbelievable to me. All I can think about is the line-up of our legs and how his arm has been overlapping the left side of my body for the last hour. And the only thing time has done is relaxed our bodies all the much, so we're just sort of this sloppy mess in the middle of his couch, in the middle of his living room, in the middle of a fucking debacle of epic proportions.

His body is full--fuller than it was, for sure, when we left tour. In general, it is fuller. Thicker. More solid. That is, all of those things, compared to my own.

What I wouldn't do, honest to God, to just sink down further, where I am, and bury myself behind and under him and greedily wrap every bit of him up to treasure.

Is that a bit much? Does it even matter at this point?

My hand falls a bit, landing at his bent elbow, which is where is stays for awhile more, naturally fitting there.

And then I'm a little tired, so my eyes flutter on-and-off until the next time I open them, coming-to, I've realized I've conked out, and I lift my head. The credits are rolling on the movie, so we can't have been asleep that long. There was a sudden surge of music with the credits, is what I gather, and that's what woke me. Him, too, it seems, as he lifts his head. I find my eyes on the digital clock on the wall. Everything in my heart, in my head, too, sinks, and I know it's time to leave. I have to drive to one of my best mate's houses, pick him up, and head the Heathrow. I go to say something, but he turns his head, half asleep.

He smiles, eyes half closed.

I smile, too, and pull my hand from its place on my stomach and it sleepily goes back to his arm, but across it, too, and to his chest, and I hug him, pressing my cheek to his shoulder. It's just a hug. A cute hug. A quiet hug. A hug that doesn't count, and no one has to know, not even him, because it's a post-nap sleep-haze sort of hug. It's all too much, though, as nothing has ever felt more fulfilling, suddenly, and now I no longer want to move from this spot at all. Nothing seems more important than this... nothing could be more important than this right now, not for me. Maybe there's a small, innocent, quiet sigh that comes from me, and maybe it's not innocent as it used to be. This isn't the first time we've fallen asleep this close--hardly! But it's certainly the first time I could plan to camp out here for awhile, let the earth go on madly spinning around or off its axis--and sure, we'd die if that happened--heh--but...

I lift my face and find it colliding with the side of his.

We're nuzzling, cheeks sliding together and apart over and over, until he finally settles, and for awhile we just... lie here, silently, with closed eyes and matched cheeks, and doze.

Though my voice cracks and fizzles a bit in its fog, I say it, "I've to go..."

He's not happy about it, but he doesn't let on. His face is stony and unmoving, and he doesn't have any words to say, but I know he's heard me.

As his body pulls away from mine, there is nothing in the world that I have ever experienced that has been quite as earth-shaking. The separation is cruel, and my body aches in the loss of the weight, in the loss of his warmth and the way for the first time in years I was able to fit back into place with my only true puzzle-piece. Could maybe he be my soul mate? That doesn't denigrate being in love with him, but it's surely more fitting in moments like these, when in front of me I see a man rise from the couch, exhausted and beautiful, from that boy I was immediately drawn to five years ago. I'm still drawn to him the exact same way. No matter where I go, where he goes, or what either of us does or says... I will never not be this boy, this man, resting on a couch in his absence, gazing and awing at being able to know someone as I know him, and vice versa. I've not been lost in life since the day I saw him.

It's hard for him.

He doesn't look at me as he walks around the couch, cupcake box in hand, leaving my attention on the view outside his huge windows in his wake. Equally bright.

There's a hand in my hair, fingertips combing back all of my fringe, and my head thumps back. I look to him.

He's standing there, cupcake box in his other hand, and I daze out on it like a cat in the sun and let the feel of his fingers take me away.

When I next open my eyes, it's because he's pressed a soft kiss to my hairline and pulled away, and over the back of the couch I see him stress-rub his chest.

I rub mine, too, before prying my eyes away for what I'm not meant to see, and grasp my shirt material in my entire left palm, chest heavy. I guess it's best I get up, too, eternally turned on and not sure what to make of it. It takes real effort to tear myself away from this spot I've found contentment and reason in and with whom. But it's got to be done, really, so I'm finally up. I fold up his blanket, glancing over and up the couple of steps to his kitchen area where he's bent at the waist at the kitchen island, already looking back at me. It's unexpected, but I haven't got a smile to give him, which, it turns out, does need to be given because he's missing one, too. His hair is down, and he's pulling at it, trying to busy himself.

I'm aching as I move towards the kitchen steps, with my drink glass, while he's coming down. I go over and wash up my glass in his sink. I go through his cabinets, searching for where it may go when it's done drying, though I know I won't be there for that. Killing time for no reason, naturally. Dunno really what to do with myself. I don't want to leave. But I don't think either of us is ready for me to stay. A great many of things have transpired this morning, and that's so... massively fragile. I can hear how thin the layers were being put down over our foundation, here. It's pretty key to how the rest of this, and our general friendship, will transpire.

I step down the two steps, leaving me on the last, as he comes over, leaned down as he holds the back of his shoe so his heel can slip in, but then he stands up straight.

We're even. Or perhaps I am a bit taller.

It's too much for him.

He drops his other shoe.

My hands stay at my sides, nearly nose-to-nose with him as he comes closer. I've no illusions at all... my God, he's beautiful. I want him. I want all of him!

His fingertips play at the bottom of my shirt, barely touching, then barely pawing.

His mouth is on mine, and his hands are on the small of my waist, and mine are wrapped around his thin wrists there, elbows bent, and it's so lush, so warm, so magnificent. It's not even one kiss, or two kisses. I've lost all sense, nerves frayed, with heat in my face and purpose in my hands traveling up his bare forearms, feeling them out as he comes in closer, but it's me--it's me who does it--it's me who lets my hands break the boundaries and travel all of the way up his arms until not just my hands are involved, but my arms, and since we're even, and since our mouths are hotly sewn together, my arms lock around his shoulders, around his neck, and my fingers pull back through his hair, equally as distressed and tense. I'm in all the way, tilting in to the right and initiating another kiss. He's got it all together, he's got a lock on what he wants, and he's got arms that pull me in tight, too, and for--I don't know--a lifetime, or ten seconds, or five minutes, all I know how to do is kiss him--all I need to learn is how to meet his mouth, and which way he prefers to go, and that none of that really matters because GOD, God... God, he can kiss. Long, deep, heavy kisses, kisses I've not had in...

Ever, maybe.

I am shaky, admittedly, but reeling against his mouth as it opens for mine a bit more, and he invites me in the tiniest amount, extending a warm welcome. I accept!

My tongue is warmer than his as it slips just in the small gap, over the barrier of his bottom lip, and I feel my knees physically weaken as his mouth opens further and he kisses me hard, out of nowhere, and suddenly his arms around me have dissipated, though only to grasp my face with both hands. It feels unbelievable, the want, his need, and I don't fight the way he's moving, pressing me to back up the stairs, which means I've to stop being locked around his shoulders and latched evenly with his mouth, maybe even higher than it, able entirely to get the very best grip on it. My left foot goes back, and somehow I'm shakily up on the kitchen level, again, with my hands now on his sides, grasping the material of his sweater in both fists, the tip of my nose warm and numb from where it's been nuzzling and rubbing with his after one kiss, two, three... countless.

I don't know where we're going, and I don't care.

But the kisses are immediately different. He's taller, again, and my face is tilted just slightly right up, and yet somehow... somehow... this feels even better.

His arms come right around me, and I feel perfectly fitted here, to know he's got a hand on my neck, and a thumb under my ear, and a hand on my lower back.

Our mouths are apart, but our eyes are still together. His are dark, warm... inviting. And so this time, the rush of those intense, hot kisses out of the way, I get to stare into his eyes from the most private, quiet moment to have ever existed for me--and hopefully him--and stand in his arms. I get to soften my hold at his sides in order to wrap both of my eager arms around his lower torso as just a hug, and when I kiss him, having to tilt up to do it, eyes now on his mouth and his nose and the glorious space between them and my own, it's romantic. It's long, and full, and there's acknowledgment that his mouth is the only one I ever want to kiss. Or could ever want to kiss. It feels so good against mine. He knows just how to kiss me, just how to kiss back--just how to lightly nip, knows, innately, somehow, to pull away just to circle the tip of my nose with his, with closed eyes, before he goes in for another kiss, asking for control again, and I let him have it.

I mean, I really let him have it, letting him control it, and hold onto him, resting against him in his kitchen, against the kitchen island, as our mouths heavily, well... make love.

I moan about it, and he's got a few low groans in here, too.

I don't know what to do with these kisses. I have no idea how to... understand.

It's so, so... _good_. In this instance, good _is_ the most wonderful, all-encompassing word to exist in the world.

It's not rough, not fast, not all over the place, but hands start rubbing, and eventually my back hits his refrigerator door, and that's where we stay, pinned like magnets. He kisses me breathless in a way I've never known, and I just want to give him any of what he gives me. I want him to understand, but every time I kiss him, I think... I think he does. Each kiss is long, slow, open, hot, relaxed... every so often there's a long, appreciative massage or suck of a tongue before a kiss closes off, and it's usually him heavily sighing about it. He's putty, the way he's leaned in and against me, control lost and no longer important, whispering to me quietly about how good it feels before I ask for him to kiss me again.

"Kiss me, Harry."

And he does, as if I needed to ask. In my discovery of his mouth, in his blind love of the bare touch of my fingers against the skin on the sides of his ribcage, I've learned...

I haven't opened my eyes in years. I don't need to in order to see him. I don't need to see him at all.

Everything I've ever know about him is in his kiss, and that's all I need right now.

He pulls away from me, for the first time, and I open my eyes fully, having been in a love-coma-trance for some time, and we just stare at each other. I step away from the refrigerator, hands out on him, now, finding his wrists, and kiss him, eagerly, tilting my chin up as his comes down. He touches my lower belly so softly and hums about it all.

"Stay here," he tries, our noses together.

"Too--too fast, too soon. Too fast,” I run my teeth to pull over my tender bottom lip.

We both know that.

"Go, then," he asks, desperately, and I agree, but even as I'm moving away, down the kitchen steps, dizzy from lack of oxygen, we're kissing side-ways, and his hand is permanently attached to my bent elbow.

He turns me around at the door, when I've got my keys, and my phone. I'm dazed.

His face is flushed. His mouth is swollen. I've never seen his eyes so glassy, not _ever_. He is beautiful. I've never known anything so true. He's got a raging hard-on, and me, too, obviously. Staying is out of the question, but here we are, at the door, speechless. We hug, we do, but it's nothing like any of our hugs have ever been. I rub his back and his sides and graze under his jaw with my lips, coasting there because I can.

" _Nooooo_ ," he hums a laugh, tugging my face to tilt up with a hand grasped fully in the back of my hair, and I meet his eyes like lightning. "Mmm, Lou."

The bright light of the windows in the entry, and the white walls, make his green glassy eyes all the more marble-like, pupils so dilated I rage inside, "Kiss me, love."

"I'm going to kiss you," he laughs back his assurance, both of us embarrassed but happy about it. He wants to say something else but is too overwhelmed.

And so he kisses me goodbye--it's a sexy kiss, a teasing kiss, an "are you sure you really want to leave right now?" kind of kiss, but then he fixes it, and softens into a “holy shit, has this really happened?” We say goodbye--or, really, I just say “gotta go,” and I basically stumble out his front door, a swollen-lipped, red-nosed, disbelieving, earth-having-turned-on-its-axis beaming, shaky mess.

At the airport, as I am sitting in my seat between two mates, I go to check my messages one last time before the phone goes off, and at that same time, Harry texts.

_What do they put in those cupcakes? Need the recipe ASAP. ;)_

 


End file.
